154 ELIZABETH GARY AGASSIZ 



Every poor hut would have made a pretty sketch. 

 The houses of the poor are simply a rough trellis of 

 tree stems interwoven with boughs, and green as an 

 arbor while the boughs are fresh. As they dry, these 

 boughs form a rough thatch made closer by a coarse 

 rushlike grass put on in bundles. There is always an 

 open house place, a sort of porch in front shaded by 

 a roof of thatch supported on posts. This is the living 

 place of the family in the daytime, usually a rough 

 little table and perhaps a bench. Here you see them 

 sitting in the sun or sometimes grouped around a bit 

 of fire on the ground where simmers their pot of soup 

 or beans. 



Well, about five o'clock in the afternoon we 

 reached the hacienda of our hospitable friend, but I 

 could not find that any one expected our coming. The 

 people said the "Major Domo" of the farm, Senhor 

 Morro, to whom we had a letter, had gone away and 

 might not be back till the next day. I felt discouraged, 

 for I had taken cold at Tome, had a bad headache 

 and really wanted rest, as we all did indeed, for we had 

 come over a very rough road. As we stood debating in 

 the yard, [there] rode in a gentleman on horseback; 

 every moving thing here is on a horse. This man looked 

 thoroughly a gentleman; we explained our situation. 

 He said he was a great friend of Monsieur Morro's 

 and would undertake to do the honors of the house 

 in his absence. We were shown upstairs; a door was 

 opened on to a verandah which was full of the after- 

 noon sunshine and looked directly over a beautiful 

 river and a pretty country bordered by a range of 



