LIFE IN ENTRE RIOS, MINAS GERAES. 175 



feeling the cold ; but I explained that although in England 

 it was often much colder in November, answering to May 

 here, yet the days were also cold, and so one becomes 

 accustomed to it, never having in our climate a grilling 

 tropical sun with cloudless sky in winter, and the other 

 extreme of cold at night, with a difference of some 80° 

 Fahr. in the temperature of midday and midnight. To- 

 night, after dinner, sitting in my large bare mud-floored, 

 mud-walled room, my hands and feet were cold as ice, 

 and at 6.30 p.m. the thermometer in the garden stood at 

 37°, with a cold air ; in the room it was 50°. How I 

 long for a good red fire to sit beside and place my feet 

 near ! 



I have read with great interest Mr. Hammond's letter 

 in the Times of the 19th of April on Brazilian railways. 

 He certainly takes a pessimist view, and appears to have 

 some private grievance, for " toute verity n'est pas bonne a 

 dire ; " at least, in such an abrupt manner. 



Being Ascension Day, I did not do much at the office, 

 but went to Mass, and watched the people for the last time 

 here. The women and girls all begin to flock to church 

 long before the hour of service, and soon fill up the nave, 

 while the men only go in at the last moment. There is 

 always a continuous stream of the gentler sex past my 

 door — fine young negresses, with brilliant handkerchiefs 

 round their heads, dressed in bright yellow, red, blue, or 

 green, print or muslin, gowns ; some of them have shawls 

 also of vividly contrasting hues. Nearly all the white or 

 whitish girls and women wear nothing on their heads, but 

 their well-oiled shiny black tresses are neatly plaited and 

 coiled up, and decked with flowers. Some of the richer 

 matrons wear picturesque black-lace mantillas, and a few 

 girls come out in the latest Paris fashions, with jaunty little 



