A VACATION TRIP TO BRAZIL. 
BY C. FRED. HARTT, A. M. 
New York to Para. 
On the 22d of June, 1867, I left New York in the | 
steamer “Havana” to spend my vacation on the Brazilian 
coast, my especial object being an exploration of the coral 
reefs of the vicinity of the Abrolhos Islands, and the 
study of the geology of such parts of the Province of 
Bahia as might be accessible to me. Nothing of note 
occurred on the voyage to the Island of St. Thomas, 
where the steamer was delayed a day to take in coal, and 
where I had an opportunity to make a good collection of 
corals, etc. A long account of my day’s examinations 
having already appeared elsewhere,* I propose in this 
series of articles to take up my description of some of 
the more interesting results of my voyage after leaving 
the West Indies, and to offer a closing article on St. 
Thomas and the Windward Islands, in which I will incor- 
porate new material collected on my return home. 
Steamships have robbed the sea of half its poetry, and 
a voyage by steam is often very barren in incidents; 80 
with this voyage, we have had no storms, no accident to 
break the monotony of our life at sea, so that our journals 
have not been much enriched by any very interesting ex- 
periences when out of sight of land. To be sure we have 
fisted up gulf-weed, fend collected the delicate little ani- 
mals ind growing on it, and we have watched the flying- 
fish and porpoises and whales ; but one sees about as much 
of these things from a steamer, as he does of the cattle 
of a country he travels through by rail. 
. Te Sars 7, 1867, —“A Naturalist in the West Indies.” 
