soiiie 
species I knew in ilorth -iHBrica, but there were all sorts of other strange 
little peepings and pipings, — frogs, or crickets, I knew not what — that carne 
from the perfumed orange trees and from the grass and from the crevices of the 
stone wall over which the pirik . ligapanthus lilies were hoxving their heads, 
and mingled with the patter of the gently falling rain* 
Tne room .vhich we entered to pay our formal call was the first typically 
Brazilian interior that I had seen, —a great higli-ceilinged, Y/hi te-plastered 
room with lorig. open windows, wide wooden boards on the floor, soiib raodernistic 
furniture of exquisite inlaid woodwork, a funny old piano, probably rusty 
from the daripness of tropical suinnier, an even older graiwephone with a horn, 
vintage of 1902, and with a dreadful raucous tone, as we found out later on whe 
vve v/ere mercifully at the far end of the garden. Cr: the wall a glass-bo tton^d 
/s 
tray lined Y/ith outterf lies’ wings, an art which is characteristic of the 
tourist part of Rio-de Janeiro 
Cur host the florist, wearing* pajamas, took us into his greenhouse where 
A 
scores of riiarvelous begonias were decorating the benches, interspersed with 
Gnristinas cacti heavily loaded with pink flowers, ivhile maiden hair ferns 
occupied every conceivable crevice in the brick wall, and feathery green 
% 
pe lagA n ell a paved the dirt floor under the benches. nfter we had inspected 
Q lo^ini^ seedlings which were his especial joy and pride, we took leave 
of our host and went down into his garden, where enchantment began, a hurry- 
ing noisy brook dashed down the slope over huge bounders, and our servan' 
Joachiiu^^u til his f lashlight| jYen ^d^ TO^ ] to look for frogs. The serrate 
leaves f a banana tree made a bold pattern against the sky, ^vhile Y/et dror.iS 
on grass and ferns overhanging the brook caught a thousand little glittering 
points ref Abated from so.me electric lights on the street bordering the garden. 
I stood on a rock and looked, surrounded by a kind of luminosity that was not 
