Chapter III: Life in Rio Continued.—fazenda Life (1)

BOTAFOGO.—INSANE HOSPITAL.—TIJUCA.—ERRATIC
DRIFT.—VEGETATION.—BIRTHDAY DINNER.—ARRANGEMENTS FOR PARTIES TO
THE INTERIOR.—PUBLIC LECTURES IN RIO.—PROCESSION OF ST.
GEORGE.—LEAVE RIO ON EXCURSION TO THE FORTALEZA DE SANTA
ANNA.—LOCALITIES FOR ERRATIC DRIFT BETWEEN RIO AND
PETROPOLIS.—DEPARTURE FROM JUIZ DE FORA.—ARRIVAL AT THE
FAZENDA.—RIDE IN THE FOREST.—EVE OF SAN JOAŌ.—CUPIM
NESTS.—EXCURSION TO THE UPPER FAZENDA.—GRAND HUNT.—PICNIC.—COFFEE
PLANTATION.—RETURN TO RIO.—MIMIC SNOW-FIELDS.—COFFEE INSECT
SPINNING ITS NEST.—VISIT TO THE FAZENDA OF COMMENDADOR
BREVES.—BOTANIZING EXCURSION TO TIJUCA.—PREPARATIONS FOR LEAVING
RIO.—MAJOR COUTINHO.—COLLEGIO DOM PEDRO SEGUNDO.

_May 22d._—This afternoon Dr. and Mrs. C—— and myself went out for a country ramble, somewhat at a venture, it is true, but feeling sure that in the beautiful scenery about Rio we could hardly go amiss. We took one of the many ferry-boats in the neighborhood of our hotel, and presently found ourselves on the way to Botafogo. Almost all the environs of the city are built along beaches; there is the beach or Praia of Botafogo, the Praia of San Christovāo, the Praia of San Domingo, and half a dozen others, all of which mean some suburb of the town situated on the shore with a beach in front of it. As it is rather the fashion for the better class of people to live out of town, the houses and gardens in these suburbs are often delightful. We enjoyed the sail exceedingly. For a part of the way the boat keeps close under the mountains, and no description can give an idea of their picturesque outlines, or of the wonderful coloring which softens all their asperities and mellows the whole landscape. We landed at a jetty thrown out from a romantic-looking road, and as we found no carriage on the wharf, and ascertained that the boat did not return for two hours, we wandered up this road to see where chance would lead us. The afternoon would have been full of interest had it ended in the walk along the crescent-shaped bay, with the water rippling on the sands, and the mountains opposite all purple in the afternoon sunshine. The road brought us, however, to a magnificent hospital for the insane, the hospital of Dom Pedro Segundo, which we had seen and admired from the deck of the steamer on the day of our arrival. We entered the grounds, and as the great door of the building was open and the official on guard looked by no means forbidding, we ascended the steps and went in. It is difficult to imagine an edifice more appropriate for the purpose to which it is devoted. It is true we saw only the public rooms and corridors, as a permit was required to enter the wards; but a plan hanging near the entrance gave us an idea of the arrangement of the building, and its general aspect bore testimony to the cleanliness, cheerfulness, and order of the establishment. Some of the public rooms were very handsome,—especially one, at the end of which stands a statue of the boy Emperor, taken, no doubt, at the time of his coronation. In the man of forty you still recognize the frank, intelligent, manly face of the lad on whom such great responsibility was thrown at the age of fifteen. As we went up the spacious staircase, the sound of music brought us to the door of the chapel, where the evening service was going on. Patients and nurses were kneeling together; a choir of female voices was singing sweetly a calm, peaceful kind of music; that somewhat monotonous chanting, so passionless in its regular movement, which one hears in the Catholic Church; the candles were burning before the altar, but the great window just outside the door was open to the setting sun, and, as I stood in the balcony looking out on the mountains and listening to the music, I thought that a mind which had gone astray might find its way back again in such scenes and under such influences. Certainly, if nature has any healing power, it must be felt here. We lingered and listened as long as we dared, and stole away as the services were closing, just in time to take the evening boat.

_May 25th._—The fish-market is, in all seaport towns, a favorite haunt with Mr. Agassiz, and here it has an especial interest for him on account of the variety and beauty of the fishes brought in every morning. I sometimes accompany him in these rambles for the pleasure of seeing the fresh loads of oranges, flowers, and vegetables, and of watching the picturesque negro groups selling their wares or sitting about in knots to gossip. We have already learned that the fine-looking athletic negroes of a nobler type, at least physically, than any we see in the States, are the so-called Mina negroes, from the province of Mina, in Western Africa. They are a very powerful-looking race, and the women especially are finely made and have quite a dignified presence. I am never tired of watching them in the street and market, where they are to be seen in numbers, being more commonly employed as venders of fruit and vegetables than as house-servants. It is said that a certain wild and independent element in their character makes them unfit for domestic service. The women always wear a high muslin turban, and a long, bright-colored shawl, either crossed on the breast and thrown carelessly over the shoulder, or, if the day be chilly, drawn closely around them, their arms hidden in its folds. The amount of expression they throw into the use of this shawl is quite amazing. I watched a tall, superbly made woman in the street to-day who was in a great passion. Gesticulating violently, she flung her shawl wide, throwing out both arms, then, drawing it suddenly in, folded it about her, and stretched herself to her full height; presently opening it once more, she shook her fist in the face of her opponent, and then, casting one end of her long drapery over her shoulder, stalked away with the air of a tragedy queen. It serves as a cradle also, for, tying it loosely round their hips, they slip the baby into the folds behind, and there it hangs, rocked to sleep by the mother’s movement as she walks on with her long, swinging tread. The Mina negress is almost invariably remarkable for her beautiful hand and arm. She seems to be conscious of this, and usually wears close-fitting bracelets at the wrist, made of some bright-colored beads, which set off the form of the hand and are exceedingly becoming on her dark, shining skin. These negroes are Mohammedans, and are said to remain faithful to their prophet, though surrounded by the observances of the Catholic Church. They do not seem to me so affable and responsive as the Congo negroes, but are, on the contrary, rather haughty. One morning I came upon a cluster of them in the market breakfasting after their work was done, and I stopped to talk with them, asking what they had for breakfast, and trying various subjects on which to open an acquaintance. But they looked at me coldly and suspiciously, barely answering my questions, and were evidently relieved when I walked away.

_May 26th._—Tijuca. In the pleasant environs of Rio there is no resort more frequented than the establishment of Mr. Bennett at Tijuca, and we were not sorry the day before yesterday to leave the hot, dusty city, with a pleasant party of friends, for this cluster of mountains, some eighteen hundred feet above the sea level and about eight miles from Rio. It takes its name from the peak of Tijuca, so conspicuous an object in the coast range. On our arrival we were very cordially welcomed by our host himself, who was not quite a stranger to us, for Mr. Agassiz has been already indebted to him for valuable collections. Mr. Bennett has an Englishman’s love of nature, and is very familiar with the botany and zoölogy of the beautiful region which has been his home for many years. Under his guidance, we have taken a number of pleasant rambles and rides, regretting only that we cannot avail ourselves for a longer time of his intimate knowledge of the locality and its productions.

I have alluded before to the perplexing character of the geology, and the almost universal decomposition of the rock surfaces, making it difficult to decipher them. The presence of the drift phenomena, so universal in the Northern hemisphere, has been denied here; but, in his long walk to-day, Mr. Agassiz has had an opportunity of observing a great number of erratic boulders, having no connection with the rocks in place, and also a sheet of drift studded with boulders and resting above the partially stratified metamorphic rock in immediate contact with it. I introduce here a letter written by him to his friend, Professor Peirce of Harvard University, under the first impression of the day’s experience, which will best explain his view of the subject.

“May 27th, 1865, TIJUCA.

“MY DEAR PEIRCE:—

“Yesterday was one of the happiest days of my life, and I want to
share it with you. Here I am at Tijuca, a cluster of hills, about
eighteen hundred feet high and some seven or eight miles from Rio,
in a charming cottage-like hotel, from the terrace of which you see
a drift hill with innumerable erratic boulders, as characteristic as
any I have ever seen in New England. I had before seen sundry
unmistakable traces of drift, but there was everywhere connected
with the drift itself such an amount of decomposed rocks of various
kinds, that, though I could see the drift and distinguish it from
the decomposed primary rocks in place, on account of my familiarity
with that kind of deposits, yet I could probably never have
satisfied anybody else that there is here an equivalent of the
Northern drift, had I not found yesterday, near Bennett’s hotel at
Tijuca, the most palpable superposition of drift and decomposed
rocks, with a distinct line of demarcation between the two, of which
I shall secure a good photograph. This locality afforded me at once
an opportunity of contrasting the decomposed rocks which form a
characteristic feature of the whole country (as far as I have yet
seen it) with the superincumbent drift, and of making myself
familiar with the peculiarities of both deposits; so that I trust I
shall be able hereafter to distinguish both, whether they are in
contact with one another or found separately. These decomposed rocks
are quite a new feature to me in the structure of the country.
Imagine granite, gneiss, mica slate, clay slate, and in fact all the
various kinds of rocks usually found in old metamorphic formations,
reduced to the condition of a soft paste, exhibiting all the
mineralogical elements of the rocks, as they may have been before
they were decomposed, but now completely disintegrated and resting
side by side, as if they had been accumulated artificially in the
manner you have seen glass cylinders filled with variously colored
sands or clays to imitate the appearance of the beds of Gay-Head.
And through this loose mass there run, here and there, larger or
smaller dikes of quartz-rock or of granite or other rocks equally
disintegrated; but they retain the arrangement of their materials,
showing them to be disintegrated dikes in large disintegrated masses
of rock; the whole passing unmistakably to rocks of the same kind in
which the decomposition or disintegration is only partial, or no
trace of it visible, and the whole mass exhibiting then the
appearance of an ordinary metamorphic set of rocks.

“That such masses forming everywhere the surface of the country
should be a great obstacle to the study of the erratic phenomena is
at once plain, and I do not therefore wonder that those who seem
familiar with the country should now entertain the idea that the
surface rocks are everywhere decomposed, and that there is no
erratic formation or drift here. But upon close examination it is
easy to perceive that, while the decomposed rocks consist of small
particles of the primitive rocks which they represent, with their
dikes and all other characteristic features, there is not a trace of
larger or smaller boulders in them; while the superincumbent drift,
consisting of a similar paste, does not show the slightest sign of
the indistinct stratification characteristic of the decomposed
metamorphic rocks below it, nor any of the decomposed dikes, but is
full of various kinds of boulders of various dimensions. I have not
yet traced the boulders to their origin; but the majority consist of
a kind of greenstone composed of equal amounts of a greenish black
hornblende and feldspar. In Entre Rios on the Parahyba, I was told
by an engineer on the road that in Minas Geräes iron mines are
worked in a rock like these boulders. This week I propose to explore
the Serra da Mantiqueira,[32] which separates the province of Rio
from Minas, and may advance the question further. But you see that I
need not go to the Andes to find erratics, though it may yet be
necessary for me to go, in order to trace the evidence of glacier
action in the accumulation of this drift; for you will notice that I
have only given you the evidence of extensive accumulations of drift
similar in its characteristics to Northern drift. But I have not yet
seen a trace of glacial action properly speaking, if polished
surfaces and scratches and furrows are especially to be considered
as such.

“The decomposition of the surface rocks to the extent to which it
takes place here is very remarkable, and points to a new geological
agency, thus far not discussed in our geological theories. It is
obvious here (and to-day with the pouring rain which keeps me in
doors I have satisfactory evidence of it) that the warm rains
falling upon the heated soil must have a very powerful action in
accelerating the decomposition of rocks. It is like torrents of hot
water falling for ages in succession upon hot stones. Think of the
effect, and, instead of wondering at the large amount of decomposed
rocks which you meet everywhere, you will be surprised that there
are any rocks left in their primitive condition. It is, however, the
fact, that all the rocks you see are encased, as it were, in a
lining of the decomposed part of their surface; they are actually
covered with a rotten crust of their own substance.

“Ever truly yours,

“L. AGASSIZ.”

Among the objects of special interest which we have seen here for the first time are the colossal fruits of the Sapucaia-tree, a species of Lecythis, belonging to the same family as the Brazilian nuts. These fruits, of which there are a number of species, vary from the size of an apple to that of an ordinary melon; they resemble an urn closed with a lid, and contain about fifty seeds as large as almonds. The woods all over these Tijuca hills are beautiful and wonderfully luxuriant; but I lack names for the various trees. We are not yet familiar enough with the aspect of the forest to distinguish readily its different forms of vegetation; and it is besides exceedingly difficult here to ascertain the common names of plants. The Brazilians do not seem to me observant of nature in its details; at all events, I never get a satisfactory answer to the question I am constantly putting, “What do you call this tree or flower?” And if you ask a botanist, he invariably gives you the scientific, not the popular name, nor does he seem to be aware that any such exists. I have a due respect for nomenclature, but when I inquire the name of some very graceful tree or some exquisite flower, I like to receive a manageable answer, something that may fitly be introduced into the privacy of domestic life, rather than the ponderous official Latin appellation. We are struck with the variety of Melastomas in full flower now, and very conspicuous, from their large purple blossoms, and have remarked also several species of the Bombaceæ, easily distinguished by their peculiar foliage and large cotton fruits. The Candelabra-tree (Cecropia) is abundant here, as throughout the neighborhood of Rio, and is covered at this season with fruit resembling somewhat the fruit of the bread-tree, but more slender and cylindrical in form. Large Euphorbias, of the size of forest-trees, also attract our attention, for it is the first time we have seen them except as shrubs, such as the “Estrella do Norte” (Poinsettia). But there is before Mr. Bennett’s house a very large nut-tree, “Nogueira,” of this family. The palms are numerous; among them the Astrocaryum Cari, whose spiny stems and leaves make it difficult to approach, is very common. Its bunches of bright chestnut-brown fruit hang from between the leaves which form its crown, each bunch about a foot in length, massive and compact, like a large cluster of black Hamburg grapes. The Syagrus palm is also frequent; it has a greenish fruit not unlike the olive in appearance, also hanging in large pendent bunches just below the leaves. The mass of foliage is everywhere knit together by parasitic vines without number, and every dead branch or fallen trunk is overgrown by parasites. Foreign tropical trees are cultivated about the houses everywhere,—bread-fruit trees and Ameixas, a kind of plum of the hawthorn family, bananas, etc. The bamboo of the East Indies also is used to form avenues in Rio de Janeiro and its environs. The alleys of bamboo in the grounds of the palace at San Christovāo are among its most beautiful ornaments.

Mr. Agassiz has been surprised to find that shrimps of considerable size are common in all the brooks and even in the highest pools of Tijuca. It seems strange to meet with Crustacea of marine forms in mountain streams.

To-day we are kept in the house by a violent rain, but there is enough to do in looking over specimens, working up journals, writing letters, &c., to prevent the time from hanging heavy on our hands. To-morrow we return to town.

_May 28th_, RIO.—To-day is Mr. Agassiz’s birthday, and it has been so affectionately remembered here that it is difficult to believe ourselves in a foreign country. The Swiss citizens gave him a dinner yesterday on the eve of the anniversary, where everything recalled the land of his birth, without excluding the land of his adoption. The room was draped with the flags of all the Cantons, while the ceiling was covered by two Swiss national flags, united in the centre just above his own seat by the American flag, thus recognizing at once his Swiss nationality and his American citizenship.[33] The Brazilian flag which gave them all hospitality and protection had also an honored place. The fête is reported to have been most genial and gay, closing with a number of student songs in which all bore their share, and succeeded by a serenade under our windows. To-day our room is festive with flowers and other decorations, and friendly greetings on every side remind us that, though in a foreign land, we are not among strangers.

_June 14th._—Since our return from Tijuca we have been almost constantly in town, Mr. Agassiz being engaged, often from early morning till deep into the night, in taking care of the specimens which come in from every quarter, and making the final preparations for the parties which he intends sending into the interior. The most important of these, or rather the one for which it is most difficult to procure the necessary facilities, is bound for the upper course of the San Francisco. At this point one or more of their number will strike across the country to the Tocantins, and descend that river to the Amazons, while the others will follow the valley of the Piauhy to the coast. This is a long, difficult, but, as we are assured, not a dangerous journey for young and vigorous men. But wishing to anticipate every trouble that may befall them, Mr. Agassiz has made it his business to ascertain, as far as possible, the nature of the route, and to obtain letters to the most influential people for every step of the road. This has been no light task; in a country where there are no established means of internal communication, where mules, guides, camaradas, and even an armed escort may be necessary, and must be provided for in advance, the preparation for a journey through the interior requires a vast deal of forethought. Add to this the national habit of procrastination, the profound conviction of the Brazilian that to-morrow is better than to-day, and one may understand how it happens that, although it has been a primary object since our arrival to expedite the party to the Tocantins, their departure has been delayed till now. And yet it would be the height of ingratitude to give the impression that there has been any backwardness on the part of the Brazilians themselves, or of their government, to facilitate the objects of the expedition. On the contrary, they not only show a warm interest, but the utmost generosity, and readiness to give all the practical aid in their power. Several leading members of the Cabinet, the Senate, and the House of Representatives have found time now, when they have a war upon their hands, and when one ministry has been going out and another coming in, not only to prepare the necessary introductions for these parties from Rio to the Amazons, but also to write out the routes, giving the most important directions and information for the separate journeys.[34] Yet with the best will in the world the Brazilians know comparatively little of the interior of their own country. It is necessary to collect all that is known from a variety of sources, and then to combine it as well as may be, so as to form an organized plan. Even then a great deal must be left to be decided in accordance with circumstances which no one can foresee. No pains have been spared to anticipate all the probable difficulties, and to provide for them as far as it is humanly possible to do so; and we feel that this journey, a part of which has been made by very few persons before, has never been undertaken under better auspices. This party will explore the upper course of the Rio Doce, the Rio das Velhas, and the San Francisco, with the lower course of the Tocantins and its tributaries, as far as they can; making also collections of fossils in certain regions upon the route. Another party, starting at about the same time, is to keep nearer the coast, exploring the lower course of the Rio Doce and the San Francisco. Mr. Agassiz thus hopes to make at least a partial survey of this great water system, while he himself undertakes the Amazons and its tributaries.[35] In the mean time, the result of the weeks he has been obliged to spend in Rio, while organizing the work of these parties and making the practical arrangements for its prosecution, has been very satisfactory. The collections are large, and will give a tolerably complete idea of the fauna of this province, as well as a part of that of Minas Geräes. A survey of the Dom Pedro Railroad, made under his direction by his two young friends, Messrs. Hart and St. John, is also an excellent beginning of the work in this department, and his own observations on the drift phenomena have an important bearing on the great questions on which he hoped to throw new light in coming here. The closing words of a lecture delivered by him last evening at the Collegio Dom Pedro Segundo will best express his own estimation of the facts he has collected in their bearing on the drift phenomena in other parts of the world. After giving some account of the erratic blocks and drift observed by him at Tijuca and already described in his letter to Mr. Peirce, he added: “I wish here to make a nice distinction that I may not be misunderstood. I _affirm_ that the erratic phenomena, viz. erratic drift, in immediate superposition with partially decomposed stratified rock, exist here in your immediate neighborhood; I _believe_ that these phenomena are connected, here as elsewhere, with the action of ice. It is nevertheless possible that a more intimate study of these subjects in tropical regions may reveal some phase of the phenomena not hitherto observed, just as the investigation of the glacial action in the United States has shown that immense masses of ice may move over a plain, as well as over a mountain slope. Let me now urge a special study of these facts upon the young geologists of Rio, as they have never been investigated and their presence is usually denied. If you ask me, ‘To what end?—of what use is such a discovery?’—I answer, It is given to no mortal man to predict what may be the result of any discovery in the realms of nature. When the electric current was discovered, what was it? A curiosity. When the first electric machine was invented, to what use was it put? To make puppets dance for the amusement of children. To-day it is the most powerful engine of civilization. But should our work have no other result than this,—to know that certain facts in nature are thus and not otherwise, that their causes were such and no others,—this result in itself is good enough, and great enough, since the end of man, his aim, his glory, is the knowledge of the truth.”

One word upon these lectures, since we are told by the Brazilians themselves that the introduction of public lectures among them is a novelty and in a certain sense an era in their educational history. If any subject of science or letters is to be presented to the public here, it is done under special conditions before a selected audience, where the paper is read in presence of the Emperor with all due solemnity. Popular instruction, with admittance for all who care to listen or to learn, has been hitherto a thing unknown. The suggestion was made by Dr. Pacheco, the Director of the Collegio Dom Pedro II., a man of liberal culture and great intelligence, who has already done much for the progress of education in Rio de Janeiro; it found favor with the Emperor, who is keenly alive to anything which can stimulate the love of knowledge among his people, and at his request Mr. Agassiz has given a course of lectures in French on a variety of scientific subjects. He was indeed very glad to have an opportunity of introducing here a means of popular education which he believes to have been very salutary in its influence among us. At first the presence of ladies was objected to, as too great an innovation on national habits; but even that was overcome, and the doors were opened to all comers, the lectures being given after the true New England fashion. I must say that, if the absolutely uninterrupted attention of an audience is any test of its intelligence, no man could ask a better one than that which Mr. Agassiz has had the pleasure of addressing in Rio de Janeiro. It has also been a great pleasure to him, after teaching for nearly twenty years in English, to throw off the fetters of a foreign tongue and speak again in French. After all, with a few exceptions, a man’s native language remains for him the best; it is the element in which he always moves most at ease.

The Emperor, with his family, has been present at all these lectures, and it is worthy of note, as showing the simplicity of his character, that, instead of occupying the raised platform intended for them, he caused the chairs to be placed on a level with the others, as if to show that in science at least there is no distinction of rank.[36]

_June 11th._—To-day has been a festa, but one the significance of which it is somewhat difficult to understand, so singularly is the religious element mingled with the grotesque and quaint. In the Church it is the feast of Corpus Christi, but it happens to fall on the same date as another festival in honor of St. George, which is kept with all sorts of antique ceremonies. I went in the morning with our young friend, Mr. T——, to the Imperial chapel, where high mass was celebrated, and at the close of the services we had some difficulty in finding our way back to the hotel, before which the procession was to pass, for the street was already draped with all sorts of gay colors and crowded with spectators. First in order came the religious part of the procession; a long array of priests and church officials carrying lighted candles, pyramids of flowers, banners, &c. Then came the host, under a canopy of white satin and gold, supported by massive staffs; the bearers were the highest dignitaries of the land, first among them being the Emperor himself and his son-in-law, the Duke of Saxe. In strange contrast with these solemnities was the stuffed equestrian figure of St. George, a huge, unwieldy shape on horseback, preceded and followed by riders almost as grotesque as himself. With him came a number of orders resembling, if not the same as, the Free-Masons, the Odd Fellows, and like societies. The better educated Brazilians speak of this procession as an old legacy from Portugal, which has lost its significance for them, and which they would gladly see pass out of use, as it is already out of date.

This evening Mr. Agassiz gave the closing lecture of his course. It is to be followed next week by a lecture from Dr. Capanema, the Brazilian geologist, and there will be an attempt made to organize courses of public lectures on the same plan hereafter. Our numbers are gradually diminishing. Last week the party for the interior, consisting of Messrs. St. John, Allen, Ward, and Sceva, started, and Messrs. Hartt and Copeland leave in a day or two to undertake an exploration of the coast between the Parahyba do Sul and Bahia.

_June 30th._—On the 21st we left Rio on our way to the province of Minas Geräes, where we were to pass a week at the coffee fazenda of Senhor Lage, who received us so courteously on our former visit to Juiz de Fora, and who was so influential in projecting and carrying out the Union and Industry road. The journey to Juiz de Fora, though we had made it once before, had lost nothing of its beauty by familiarity, and had gained in interest of another kind; for his examination of the erratic drift at Tijuca has given Mr. Agassiz the key to the geological constitution of the soil, and what seemed to him quite inexplicable on our first excursion over this road is now perfectly legible. It is interesting to watch the progress of an investigation of this character, and to see how the mental process gradually clears away the obscurity. The perception becomes sharpened by dwelling upon the subject, and the mind adapts itself to a difficult problem as the eye adapts itself to darkness. That which was confused at first presently becomes clear to the mental vision of the observer, who watches and waits for the light to enter. There is one effect of the atmospheric influence here, already alluded to in the previous pages, which at first sight is very deceptive. Wherever there is any cut through drift, unless recently opened, it becomes baked at the surface so as to simulate stone in such a way as hardly to be distinguished from the decomposed rock surfaces in place, unless by a careful examination. This, together with the partial obliteration of the stratification in many places, makes it, at first glance, difficult to recognize the point of contact between the stratified rock and the drift resting above it. A little familiarity with these deceptive appearances, however, makes it as easy to read the broken leaves of the book of nature here as elsewhere, and Mr. Agassiz has now no more difficulty in following the erratic phenomena in these Southern regions than in the Northern hemisphere. All that is wanting to complete the evidence of the actual presence of ice here, in former times, is the glacial writing, the striæ and furrows and polish which mark its track in the temperate zone. These one can hardly hope to find where the rock is of so perishable a character and its disintegration so rapid. But this much is certain,—a sheet of drift covers the country, composed of a homogeneous paste without trace of stratification, containing loose materials of all sorts and sizes, imbedded in it without reference to weight, large boulders, smaller stones, pebbles, and the like. This drift is very unevenly distributed; sometimes rising into high hills, owing to the surrounding denudations; sometimes covering the surface merely as a thin layer; sometimes, and especially on steep slopes, washed completely away, leaving the bare face of the rock; sometimes deeply gullied, so as to produce a succession of depressions and elevations alternating with each other. To this latter cause is due, in great degree, the billowy, undulating character of the valleys. Another cause of difficulty in tracing the erratic phenomena consists in the number of detached fragments which have fallen from the neighboring heights. It is not always easy to distinguish these from the erratic boulders. But a number of localities exist, nevertheless, where the drift rests immediately above stratified rock, with the boulders protruding from it, the line of contact being perfectly distinct. It is a curious fact, that one may follow the drift everywhere in this region by the prosperous coffee plantations. Here as elsewhere ice has been the great fertilizer,—a gigantic plough grinding the rocks to powder and making a homogeneous soil in which the greatest variety of chemical elements are brought together from distant localities. So far as we have followed these phenomena in the provinces of Rio and Minas Geräes, the thriving coffee plantations are upon erratic drift, the poorer growth upon decomposed rock in place. Upon remarking this, we were told that the farmers who are familiar with the soil select that in which they find loose rocks imbedded, because it is the most fertile. They unconsciously seek the erratic drift. It may not be amiss to point out some of the localities in which these geological phenomena may be most readily studied, since they lie along the public road, and are easy of access. The drift is very evident in the swamp between Mauá and Raiz da Serra on the way to Petropolis. In ascending the Serra at the half-way house there is an excellent locality for observing drift and boulders; and beyond one may follow the drift up to the very top of the road. The whole tract between Villa Theresa and Petropolis is full of drift. Just outside of Petropolis, the Piabanha has excavated its bed in drift, while the banks have been ravined by the rains. At the station of Correio, in front of the building, is also an admirable opportunity for observing all the erratic phenomena, for here the drift, with large boulders interspersed throughout the mass, overlies the rock in place. A few steps to the north of the station Pedro do Rio there is another great accumulation of large boulders in drift. These are but a few of the localities where such facts may be observed.

On the evening of the 22d we arrived at Juiz de Fora, and started at sunrise the next morning for the fazenda of Senhor Lage, some thirty miles beyond. We had a gay party, consisting of the family of Senhor Lage and that of his brother-in-law, Senhor Machado, with one or two other friends and ourselves. The children were as merry as possible, for a visit to the fazenda was a rarity, and looked upon by them as a great festivity. To transport us all with our luggage, two large coaches were provided, several mules, and a small carriage, while a travelling photographic machine, belonging to Senhor Machado, who is an admirable photographist, brought up the rear.[37] The day was beautiful and our road lay along the side of the Serra, commanding fine views of the inland country and the coffee plantations which covered the hillsides wherever the primeval forest had been cut down. The road is another evidence of the intelligence and energy of the proprietor. The old roads are mere mule tracks up one side of the Serra and down the other, gullied of course by all the heavy rains and rendered at times almost impassable. Senhor Lage has shown his neighbors what may be done for their comfort in a country life by abandoning the old method, and, instead of carrying the road across the mountain, cutting it in the side with so gradual an ascent as to make the ride a very easy one. It is but a four hours’ drive now from Juiz de Fora to the fazenda, whereas, until the last year, it was a day’s, or even in bad weather a two days’ journey on horseback. It is much to be desired that his example should be followed, for the absence of any tolerable roads in the country makes travelling in the interior almost an impossibility, and is the most serious obstacle to the general progress and prosperity. It seems strange that the governments of the different provinces, at least of the more populous ones, such as Minas Geräes and Rio, should not organize a system of good highways for the greater facility of commerce. The present mode of transportation on mule back is slow and cumbrous in the highest degree; it would seem as if, where the produce of the interior is so valuable, good roads would pay for themselves very soon.

At about eleven o’clock we arrived at the “Fazenda,” the long, low, white buildings of which enclosed an oblong, open space divided into large squares, where the coffee was drying. Only a part of this extensive building is occupied as the living rooms of the family; the rest is devoted to all sorts of objects connected with the care of the coffee, provision for the negroes, and the like.

When we reached the plantation the guests had not all arrived. The special occasion of this excursion to the fazenda was the festival of San João, kept always with great ceremonies in the country; the whole week was to be devoted to hunting, and Senhor Lage had invited all the best sportsmen in the neighborhood to join in the chase. It will be seen in the end that these hunters formed themselves into a most valuable corps of collectors for Mr. Agassiz. After an excellent breakfast we started on horseback for the forest with such of the company as had already assembled. The ride through the dense, deep, quiet wood was beautiful; and the dead pause when some one thought the game was near, the hushed voices, the breathless waiting for the shot which announced success or failure, only added a charm to the scene. They have a strange way of hunting here; as the forest is perfectly impenetrable, they scatter food in a cleared space for the animals, and build green screens, leaving holes to look through; behind such a screen the hunter waits and watches for hours perhaps, till the paca, or peccary, or capivara steals out to feed. The ladies dismounted and found a cool seat in one of these forest lodges, where they waited for the hunt. No great success, after all, this afternoon, but some birds which were valuable as specimens. We rode home in the evening to a late dinner, after which an enormous bonfire, built by the negroes in honor of the Eve of St. João, was lighted in front of the house. The scene was exceedingly picturesque, the whole establishment, the neighboring negro huts, and the distant forest being illuminated by the blaze, around which the blacks were dancing, accompanying their wild gestures with song and drum. Every now and then a burst of fireworks added new brightness to the picture.

The next day, the 24th, began with a long ride on horseback before breakfast, after which I accompanied Mr. Agassiz on a sort of exploration among the Cupim nests (the nests of the Termites). These are mounds sometimes three or four or even six feet high, and from two to three or four feet in diameter, of an extraordinary solidity, almost as hard as rock. Senhor Lage sent with us several negroes carrying axes to split them open, which, with all their strength, proved no easy task. These nests appear usually to have been built around some old trunk or root as a foundation; the interior, with its endless serpentine passages, looked not unlike the convolutions of a meandrina or brain coral; the walls of the passages seemed to be built of earth that had been chewed or kneaded in some way, giving them somewhat the consistency of paper. The interior was quite soft and brittle, so that as soon as the negroes could break through the outer envelope, about six inches in thickness, the whole structure readily fell to pieces. It had no opening outside, but we found, on uprooting one of these edifices from the bottom, that the whole base was perforated with holes leading into the ground beneath. The interior of all of them swarmed with the different kinds of inhabitants; the little white ones, the larger black ones with brown heads and powerful forceps, and in each were found one or two very large swollen white ones, quite different in dimensions and appearance from the rest, probably the queens. With the assistance of the negroes, Mr. Agassiz made, for future examination, a large collection of all the different kinds of individuals thus living together in various numeric proportions, and he would gladly have carried away one of the nests, but they are too cumbersome for transportation. The Cupim nests are very different from the dwellings of the Sauba ants, which have large external openings. The latter make houses by excavating, and sometimes undermine a hill so extensively, with their long galleries, that when a fire is lighted at one of the entrances to exterminate them, the smoke issues at numerous openings, distant perhaps a quarter of a mile from each other, showing in how many directions they have tunnelled out the hill, and that their winding passages communicate with each other throughout. So many travellers have given accounts of these ant-houses, and of the activity of their inhabitants in stripping and carrying off the leaves of trees to deposit them in their habitations, that it hardly seems worth while to repeat the story. Yet no one can see without astonishment one of these ant-armies travelling along the road they have worn so neatly for themselves, those who are coming from the trees looking like a green procession, almost hidden by the fragments of leaves they carry on their backs, while the returning troops, who have already deposited their burden, are hurrying back for more. There seems to be another set of individuals running to and fro, whose office is not quite so clear, unless it be to marshal the whole swarm and act as a kind of police. This view is confirmed by an anecdote related by an American resident here, who told us that he once saw an ant, returning without his load to the house, stopped by one of these anomalous individuals, severely chastised and sent back to the tree apparently to do his appointed task. The Sauba ants are very injurious to the coffee shrubs, and difficult to exterminate.[38]

In the afternoon, the hunters of the neighborhood began to come in and the party was considerably enlarged. This fazenda life, at least on an informal jovial occasion like this, has a fascinating touch of the Middle Ages in it. I am always reminded of this when we assemble for dinner in the large dimly lighted hall, where a long table, laden with game and with large haunches of meat, stands ready for the miscellaneous company, daily growing in numbers. At the upper end sit the family with their immediate guests; below, with his family, is the “Administrador,” whose office I suppose corresponds to that of overseer on a Southern plantation. In this instance he is a large picturesque-looking man, generally equipped in a kind of gray blouse strapped around the waist by a broad black belt, in which are powder-flask and knife, with a bugle slung over his shoulder, a slouched hat, and high top-boots. During dinner a number of chance cavaliers drop in, entirely without ceremony, in hunter’s costume, as they return from the chase. Then at night, or rather early in the morning, (for the Brazilian habit is “early to bed and early to rise,” in order to avoid the heat,) what jollity and song, sounding the bugles long before the dawn, twanging the guitar and whistling on the peculiar instrument used here to call the game. Altogether it is the most novel and interesting collection of social elements, mingling after a kind of picnic fashion without the least formality, and we feel every day how much we owe to our kind hosts for admitting us to an occasion where one sees so much of what is national and characteristic. The next day we went to breakfast at a smaller fazenda belonging also to Senhor Lage, higher up on the Serra da Babylonia. Again, starting before sunrise, we went slowly up the mountain, the summit of which is over 3,000 feet above the sea level. We were preceded by the “liteira,” a queer kind of car slung between two mules, in which rode the grandmamma and the baby; as carriages are impossible on these mountain roads, some such conveyance is necessary for those who are too old or too young for horseback travelling. The view was lovely, the morning cool and beautiful, and after a two hours’ ride we arrived at the upper fazenda. Here we left our horses and went on foot into the forest, where the ladies and children wandered about, gathering flowers and exploring the wood walks, while the gentlemen occupied themselves with fishing and hunting till midday, when we returned to the house to breakfast. The result of the chase was a monkey, two caititú (wild pigs), and a great variety of birds, all of which went to swell the scientific collections.[39] We returned to dine at the lower fazenda, and all retired soon after, for the next day the great hunt of the week would take place, and we were to be early astir.

At dawn the horses were at the door, and we were mounting the Serra before sunrise. We were bound to a fazenda on the Serra da Babylonia, some two leagues from the one at which we were staying, and on higher ground, too high indeed for the culture of coffee, and devoted to pasture land. It is here that Senhor Lage has his horses and cattle. The ride along the zigzag road winding up the Serra was delightful in the early morning. The clouds were flushed with the dawn; the distant hills and the forest, spreading endlessly beneath us, glowed in the sunrise. The latter part of the road lay mostly through the woods, and brought us out, after some two hours’ ride, on the brow of a hill overlooking a small lake, sunk in a cuplike depression of the mountain, just beyond which was the fazenda. The scenic effect was very pretty, for the border of the lake was ornamented with flags, and on its waters floated a little miniature steamer with the American flag at one end and the Brazilian at the other. Our host invited us to ride in at the gate of the fazenda, in advance of the rest of our cavalcade, a request which we understood when, as we passed the entrance, the little steamer put into shore, and, firing a salute in our honor, showed its name, AGASSIZ, in full. It was a pleasant surprise very successfully managed. After the little excitement of this incident was over, we went to the house to tie up our riding-habits and prepare for the woods. We then embarked in the newly-christened boat and crossed the lake to a forest on the other side. Here were rustic tables and seats arranged under a tent where we were to breakfast; but while the meal was making ready and a fire building for the boiling of coffee, the stewing of chicken, rice, and other creature comforts, we wandered at will in the wood. This was the most beautiful, because the wildest and most primitive, specimen of tropical forest we have yet seen. I think no description prepares one for the difference between this forest and our own, even though the latter be the “forest primeval.” It is not merely the difference of the vegetation, but the impenetrability of the mass here that makes the density, darkness, and solemnity of the woods so impressive. It seems as if the mode of growth—many of the trees shooting up to an immense height, but branching only toward the top—were meant to give room to the legion of parasites, sipos, lianas, and climbing plants of all kinds which fill the intervening spaces. There is one fact which makes the study of the tropical forest as interesting to the geologist as to the botanist, namely, its relation to the vegetable world of past ages hidden in the rocks. The tree-ferns, the Chamærops, the Pandanus, the Araucarias, are all modern representatives of past types, and this walk in the forest was an important one to Mr. Agassiz, because he made out one of those laws of growth which unite the past and the present. The Chamærops is a palm belonging to the ancient vegetable world, but having its representatives in our days. The modern Chamærops, with its fan-like leaves spreading on one level, stands structurally lower than the Palms with pinnate leaves, which belong almost exclusively to our geological age, and have numerous leaflets arranged along either side of a central axis. The young Palms were exceedingly numerous, springing up at every step upon our path, some of them not more than two inches high, while their elders towered fifty feet above them. Mr. Agassiz gathered and examined great numbers of them, and found that the young Palms, to whatever genus they may belong, invariably resemble the Chamærops, having their leaves extending fan-like on one plane, instead of being scattered along a central axis, as in the adult tree. The infant Palm is in fact the mature Chamærops in miniature, showing that among plants as among animals, at least in some instances, there is a correspondence between the youngest stages of growth in the higher species of a given type and the earliest introduction of that type on earth.[40]