LETTERS FROM BRAZIL 91 
December 11 (on board the “‘Ibicuhy’’) 
Just as I was getting up from breakfast I was called 
out to see a Dr. Gustavo, one of the really good and 
respectable men of Manaos; he was the bearer of a 
package and a letter, which looked quite like an offi- 
cial document for the “‘illustrissima Senhora.” The 
package contained a cacoa cup, mounted in silver, 
the work of the Indians and sent to me by several 
ladies of Manaos as a parting gift. I was the more 
touched by this, because the ladies who signed the 
letter (some half dozen) were not persons whom I had 
known particularly well here, or from whom I had 
had any cause to expect such a mark of regard. I send 
a copy of the letter especially for you, though I am 
almost ashamed to do so on account of its very flat- 
tering terms; but you must n’t show it to anybody 
else, and you will see by it that there are some women 
here who are conscious of the injustice done them and 
that their feeling for me is rather because I am, as it 
were, an exponent to them of a freer kind of life than 
any they have ever known. The same day just before 
we went on board the steamer Agassiz received from 
certain gentlemen not exclusively from Manaos but 
from the province of the Amazons a box of a beau- 
tiful dark native wood (like ebony) and containing 
samples of all the most beautiful woods of the country 
in small neatly finished blocks. All was the work of 
the Indians of the Indian school here and bore this 
inscription: ‘‘Louis Agassiz, from his friends of the 
Amazonas.” 
