174 



A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



on the other side of the lake. Here we found one of the 

 better specimens of Indian houses. On one side of the 

 house is the open porch, quite gay at this moment with 

 our brightly colored hammocks ; adjoining this is a large 

 chamber, opening into the porch by a wide straw, or rather 

 palm-leaf door ; which does not swing on hinges, however, 

 but is taken down and put up like a mat. On the other 

 side of the room is an unglazed window, closed at will 

 in the same way by a palm-leaf mat. For the present 

 this chamber is given up to my use. On the other side 

 of the porch is another veranda-like room, also open at 

 the sides, and apparently the working-room of the family ; 

 for here is the great round oven, built of mud, where the 

 farinha is dried, and the baskets of mandioca-root are stand- 

 ing ready to be picked and grated, and here also is the rough 

 log table where we take our meals. Everything has an air 

 of decency and cleanliness ; the mud-floors are swept, the 

 ground about the house is tidy and free from rubbish, the 

 little plantation around it of cacao and mandioca, with here 

 and there a coffee-shrub, is in nice order. The house stands 

 on a slightly rising ground, sloping gently upward from the 

 lake, and just below, under some trees on the shore, are 

 moored the Indian's " Montaria " and our two canoes. We 

 were received with the most cordial friendliness, the Indian 

 women gathering about me and examining, though not in a 

 rough or rude way, my dress, the net on my hair, touching 

 my rings and watch-chain, and evidently discussing the 

 " branca " between themselves. In the evening, after din- 

 ner, I walked up and down outside the house, enjoying tlie 

 picturesqueness of the scene. The husband had just come 

 in from the lake, and the fire on the ground, over which the 

 fresh fish was broiling for the supper of the famil} , shone 



