1884.] The Naturalist Brazilian Expedition. 465 
seen, so that the scenery reminded us much of river-shores in 
equatorial Brazil. 
Twenty-five miles in a direct north-west line from Porto Ale- 
gre, but fifty as the river runs, the flood-plain is greatly nar- 
rowed, and picturesque hills appear on either side ; these are out- 
lyers and denuded portions of the table-land farther north; near 
Sao João none of them exceed 800 feet in height. The village 
itself lies on a higher portion of the flood-plain, at the foot of one 
of the hills; only a few of the houses and the Catholic church 
are on a spur of the highlands. The Cahy being subject to 
heavy floods, the streets are often overflowed, and once or twice 
ayear the houses are invaded; for this reason many of them 
have an upper story to which the inmates can retire when the 
ground floor is covered with water. Notwithstanding these fre- 
quent inundations the place is notably healthy, malarial fevers 
being quite unknown; colds and lung diseases are occasionally 
prevalent, but only during the cold weather. Nearly all the peo- 
ple of Sao João are Germans, and the German language is much 
more frequently used than the Portuguese; there is a German 
eran church, and a German school where many of the chil- 
dren appear in the characteristic peasant costumes of the Father- 
land, But for the whitewashed and tile-roofed houses scattered 
irregularly along the unpaved streets, and the semi-tropical scen- 
oy around the place, one might fancy that São João was a 
Country village in Germany, 
abit resided at first with some German friends, but after a few 
eA me a a house, arranging to have our meals brought in 
si Bice boring hotel. Here we lived quietly for several 
Tug a a ng very extensive collections of the animals and 
uy si strtounding country. The colonists soon learned 
pier aoe good prices for any animal which they brought us, 
every or snakes and insects, and some of them came nearly 
a fees ae aamen to sell; in this way we secured many 
mS. After awhile we hired two young Germans as hun- 
Sang tvants, and these afterwards accompanied us in 
vised rough rhe house resembled a laboratory; we had impro- 
| ard tables and shelves for our work, and they were 
oes with jars of snakes and fishes, boxes of in- 
built AR OR gas and so on. An outhouse which had been 
en was used for rougher operations, such as skin- 
and 
ft Seneral se 
