HOMEWARD BOUND. 247 



fever there for eight years. Ceard is also pretty good ; but 

 Pard, Natal, and Maranhao are each more unhealthy than 

 the other. 



Pernambuco is the most northerly point in Brazil where 

 the telephone is in use. 



Brazil nuts (so well known in England) are imported 

 from Para. The cost there is four milreis per one hundred 

 nuts, each of which contains seventy to eighty of the small 

 nuts ; and it is often a plaisanterie to give a stranger one of 

 these large nuts, and promise him so much if he can take 

 all the little nuts out and replace them again. It is said to 

 be impossible. 



We left Pernambuco at 1.30 p.m. in drenching rain, the 

 rainy season in this part being from May to the end of 

 August ; but it sometimes begins in March, or even in 

 February. 



August 3. — Fernando de Neronha in sight from eleven 

 to four. 



August 4. — Crossed the line about 5.15 a.m. 



August'/. — The sun was vertical to-day at noon, the 

 hottest day of the voyage, although we are in lat. 14° N. 

 Both my monkeys escaped to-day. Several of us who have 

 parrots or wee beasties are in the habit of spending much 

 time with them and taming them. I had one monkey 

 to-day on deck, secured by a long bit of tape ; by accident 

 I let go, and off he rushed. I feared he would go up the 

 rigging, or jump overboard. Half a dozen men were soon 

 in pui'suit, and he was captured. Five minutes later came 

 the news that my other monkey had escaped. I went down 

 and found him comfortably ensconced on the main deck, 

 near the fore hatchways, behind a lot of bags containing a 

 few tons of potatoes, etc. There was no forcing him out ; 

 I had simply to sit and watch — only for two hours and a 



