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- 
