42 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



exempt from duty, and one would have thought that nothing 

 would have been simpler than to get our collecting apparatus 

 through the Custom House at once. But no, it was obvious, 

 they said, that the apparatus was for collecting purposes, and was 

 therefore free of duty, but " did it belong to us?" In vain we 

 showed a letter from the Brazilian Ambassador to the President 

 of the province, and pointed to our names on the boxes ; we must 

 get a letter from the President himself. On asking this gentle- 

 man for a letter he replied politely that he had nothing to do 

 with the Customs, and would not even give us a letter to say that 

 we were the party of explorers to whom the articles in question 

 belonged. After some days were spent in endless discussions in 

 which all manner of absurd objections were raised, the Customs' 

 officers, wearied of the matter, agreed to pass the boxes if we got 

 a letter from the Consul, as we had offered to do on the first day 

 of our application. This was accordingly obtained, and the boxes 

 were free, only one other objection being raised — namely, that it 

 was against the rules for the British Consul to write an official 

 document to the Custom House in any language except English, 

 while it was equally impossible for the Custom House officials to 

 receive it if it was not in Portuguese. It must go to the Public 

 Translator to be translated into Portuguese, and he would trans- 

 late it in a week, before which time our steamer was timed to 

 start ! However, a happy suggestion, that it might do as well if 

 the boxes were freed first and the translation made afterwards, 

 was fortunately accepted, and all ended well. But this provoking 

 incident almost entirely prevented our doing anything in the way 

 of collecting for a week, and will give an idea of the annoyance to 

 which a naturalist is liable on his arrival in that country. Even 

 then our difficulties were not over, for a letter to the Governor of 

 Fernando do Noronha, some days after we had discussed the 

 matter with him, suddenly discovered that he had never heard of 

 the expedition officially from the Government at Rio de Janeiro, 

 though he had been in correspondence with the Government there 

 since the previous May ! This fresh difficulty necessitated tele- 

 graphing both to England and to Rio, and when this was finally 

 settled it was nearly time for the boat to start! On the 10th of 

 August we had everything on board, and the steamer was to start 

 in a few hours, when the President telephoned to say that he 

 did not wish the boat to leave for ten days! We were in despair, 



