FAZENDA LIFE. 



115 



scorching sun. Little black children were sitting on the 

 ground and gathering what fell under the bushes, singing 

 at their work a monotonous but rather pretty snatch of 

 song in which some took the first and others the second, 

 making a not inharmonious music. As their baskets were 

 filled they came to the Administrador to receive a little 

 metal ticket on which the amount of their work was 

 marked. A task is allotted to each one, — so much to 

 a full-grown man, so much to a woman with young chil- 

 dren, so much to a child, — and each one is paid for what- 

 ever he may do over and above it. The requisition is a 

 very moderate one, so that the industrious have an oppor- 

 tunity of making a little money independently. At night 

 they all present their tickets and are paid on the spot for 

 any extra work. From the harvesting-ground we followed 

 the carts down to the place where their burden is deposited. 

 On their return from the plantation the negroes divide the 

 day's harvest, and dispose it in little mounds on the dry- 

 ing-ground. When pretty equally dried, the coffee is 

 spread out in thin even layers over the whole enclosure, 

 where it is baked for the last time. It is then hulled by 

 a very simple machine in use on almost all the fazendas, 

 and the process is complete. At noon we bade good by 

 to our kind hosts, and started for Juiz de Fora. Our stage 

 was not a bad imitation of Noah's ark, for we carried with 

 us the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the 

 fishes from the waters,* to say nothing of the trees from 

 the forest. The party with whom we had passed such 

 pleasant days collected to bid us farewell, and followed 



* Senhor Lage had caused an extensive collection of fishes to be gathered 

 from the waters of the Rio Novo, so that this excursion greatly extended 

 the range of my survey of the basin of the Parahyba. — L. A. 



