154 ELIZABETH CARY 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 Tomé, 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 
