58 A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



woman living near is a hundred and twenty, her husband 

 died many years ago at nearly a hundred.* The colonel 

 has a carpenter, who came in two or three times while we 

 were there ; he is seventy-five, but appears no more than 

 sixty, and is a better workman than any of the young men 

 about the place. 



After we had finished our dinner, the table was again 

 spread, and all the slaves and farm men came in, in relays, 

 for their evening meal, the feeble flicker of a castor-oil 

 lamp being the only light in the room. We were led off 

 early to our bedroom, passing through two other rooms full 

 of hired men, neither clean nor sweet ; but we soon forgot 

 everything in a deep sleep. 



Next morning, after coffee, we went to visit the turbine 

 grinding milho, the large shed containing numerous hol- 

 lowed-out tree-trunks, full of mandioca root steeped in 

 water, and all other apparatus for extracting the poison 

 from the root, and for the preparation of farinha. We 

 also saw the sugar-mills ; and on our return observed a 

 number of men busy making an extensive hog-yard, sur- 

 rounded by a strong stone wall, and paved with huge 

 stones flat on the top. While we were looking on, ten oxen 

 came in, dragging a kind of sleigh, formed of two logs 

 fixed together in a V shape, on which were two large 

 stones and a few smaller pieces, for paving the hog-yard. 



We left before nine, the colonel refusing any payment, 

 and thanking us for our visit and intellectual conversation. 

 Proceeding on our way, we rode across two fine valleys, in 

 which were a profusion of palms and tree-ferns. The heavy 

 clouds gradually dispersed, till by midday the sun was very 



* I was shown some time later the portrait of an old negress who lives at 

 Pitanguy, named Joanna Maria, who is 127 years old, and still does everything 

 for herself. 



