98 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 



was to act as a servant; and bringing up the rear two 

 small donkeys almost invisible from the amount of 

 baggage they carried. But if you had seen the amount 

 of worry and vexation of spirit before things could 

 be arranged, you would understand how trying it is to 

 travel in Brazil wherever the old modes of journey 

 still continue. The delay about getting horses and serv- 

 ants, the way people promise and do not perform, 

 the utter impossibility there is for the Brazilian mind 

 to conceive that it 's of the least consequence to any- 

 body whether they do a thing tomorrow or a week or 

 a month from tomorrow of what consequence is it ? 

 There's no hurry. 



Well, at last we were off. We were only to go a 

 league from the town and sleep at a village called the 

 Rancho. At nightfall we rode into the little cluster of 

 mud houses all more or less surrounded with trees. 

 We stopped at the end of the single street before a 

 low mud house, which I suppose serves as the village 

 hotel. . . . Well, perhaps least said about that night 

 is best. The fleas were rampant, and I must say for my 

 part I was very glad when five o'clock called us all to 

 get up, for it was our plan to start at six. However, 

 it 's one thing to intend going anywhere in Brazil and 

 another to get off. When we inquired after the horses 

 they were not to be found; the constant cry in travel- 

 ling is that the horses go off in the night, but it never 

 seems to occur to anybody to tie them up. Where were 

 the servants? Nobody knew. So there we sat waiting 

 and losing the best hours of the morning till horses 

 and men saw fit to turn up. At last we were off, Agas- 



