The large majority of tourists will embark at Rio on one of the fine large steamers of the Lamport and Holt Line for New York. Return may also be made by way of England on a Royal Mail boat. A few may desire a more extended acquaintance with Brazil. Some facts are therefore presented in regard to other States of this immense Republic and the facilities for visiting them.

Minas Geraes. One inclined to journey into the interior, to the rich gold and diamond region in the State of Minas Geraes, may go by the Central Railway 400 miles north to the capital of Minas, Bello Horizonte, a made-to-order city, not twenty years of age, but with a population of 30,000, already a fine town for its size. While this State has no seaboard, no rubber, and no city of 50,000 inhabitants, it has a larger population than any other State of Brazil and than most of the countries of South America. This is due to its good climate and excellent waters, as well as to its rich resources. The author Diaz says: “In this State what doesn’t hide gold contains iron; what does not contain coal spreads diamonds.” Here for a century 80,000 men toiled to supply gold to the kings of Portugal. Discovered in 1699, the output of the gold mines at the middle of the eighteenth century was at its height. Five thousand pounds weight is said to have been panned in one year in the area of one square mile; in another place 100 pounds in one night; 360,000 pounds weight were registered in Rio in 1792. The entire output has been about one billion dollars. In the nineteenth century less was produced on account of a heavy tax, new methods, and uncertainty as to property rights and mining laws. At present there is a revival and a good outlook. The oldest producing gold mine in the world is said to be the Morro Velho, between Ouro Preto and Bello Horizonte, yielding one ounce to the ton and 80,000 ounces a year.

The diamond mines of Jequitinhonha Valley, famous for two centuries, were discovered in 1729. The Regent diamond, weighing nearly an ounce, found by three convicts in 1791, secured their pardon. The Estrella do Sul, now belonging to the Rajah of Baroda, picked up by a slave who gave it for his freedom, was the highest ransom ever paid for liberty. Weighing uncut 250 carats, about half that when cut, it is worth $15,000,000. The center of the industry is the town Diamantina (population 10,000), 600 miles from Rio. Black diamonds are found, also amethysts, tourmaline, topaz, aquamarines, garnets, chrysolites, etc., in many places.

Ouro Preto, the center of the manganese industry, yields annually 250,000 tons of 55 per cent ore. Iron, found in every part of Minas, for lack of fuel, is not exploited. Platinum has been found and there is a great variety of granite and marble, agates, onyx, and rock crystal, mica, graphite, cinnabar, and asbestos. Ouro Preto, the former capital, has a mining school, organized in 1903, said to be one of the best in the world, with instruction free; the museum contains a rare collection. The State is thought to have a future rivaling that of Australia and Kimberley.

The old capital, of which Diaz says: “In six squares everything is in the horizontal plan, but the 52 streets and lanes go through tortuous and accidented places as if they were acrobats,” was at length deemed unsuitable; the State was investigated for a new one; the site of a hamlet in a beautiful valley was chosen, and a branch line was built 10 miles from the Central Railway. In 1894 private houses began to be erected. Bello Horizonte has fine wide streets, with arborization said to be the most artistic of any South American city. It has water supply, sewerage, illumination, and electric tramways, of the best type, a Government Palace which cost half a million, the finest of the State buildings of Brazil, the Department of the Interior, of Finance, and of Agriculture, each with handsome buildings, also the City Hospital. A small river with pretty cascades running through the valley forms the vertebra of a beautiful park, which with great trees, shrubs, and vines, a broad driveway, and picturesque paths rivals in extent and natural beauty all others in Brazil.

An Agricultural School with a model farm is an important educational feature on account of the great fertility of the region. Sugar cane, corn, rice, bananas, tobacco, fruits, cotton, cereals, and many other things are here cultivated, with coffee as the chief product, the State being second to SÃo Paulo in its culture. A concession was made to a North American Company for growing hemp and other fibres, one million trees to be planted within four years. Viticulture and the silk worm industry are suitable to the region. Vast pasture lands support great herds of cattle, nearly 300,000,000 head being exported in a single year. The dairy produce of butter, cheese, and milk, is very important, and eggs also. It is thus evident that Brazil possesses other industries beside rubber and coffee, and regions with agreeable climate. The San Francisco River flowing north through this section, while navigable at intervals, has a series of cascades, among the most picturesque in the world. Also there are famous mineral springs at Caxambu, altitude 3000 ft., with waters resembling those of Baden and Spa, with chalets, hotels, and sanatoria, in summer crowded with guests; and other springs in various other resorts.

The next Coast State to Rio is Espirito Santo, though small, the third coffee producer, raising also sugar cane, rice, and splendid tropical woods; a good climate up on the plateau. The capital and seaport, Victoria (20,000 pop.), has an excellent harbor, now being improved with docks, warehouses, etc., soon to be a port of call for large steamers. The next State, Bahia, will be mentioned later in the chapter.

Following Bahia is Sergipe, smallest of the States (a little larger than Maryland), 15,000 square miles, but the most thickly settled. Another small State is Alagoas; then comes the large and important Pernambuco, its capital so called, but more properly Recife; with its population of 150,000, the fourth city of Brazil, it is of great commercial importance. The name Recife arises from a substantial reef off shore forming a fine natural breakwater, to which the Dutch made some artificial addition, also erecting at its extremity a strong lighthouse tower, the light visible for 20 miles. The city, built on marshy ground, by quays and filling in redeemed from the sea, from its canals and peninsulas, is called the Brazilian Venice. Founded in 1536 by Duarte Coelho, it was in the seventeenth century occupied many years by the Dutch, who were finally expelled in 1654 by the patriotic Portuguese. From the pretty bridges are many lovely panoramas. Several fine markets, two theaters, a handsome Congress Hall, and the Governor’s Palace on the foundations of that of the Prince of Nassau facing the PraÇa de Republica are noteworthy. Two handsome churches are those of Nossa Senhora da Penha of the Corinthian order of architecture and the Boa Vista. The chief exports are cotton and sugar; the imports exceed those of any Brazilian city except Rio.

The next State on the north is Parahyba, reputed to have vast mineral wealth of coal, iron, gold, precious stones, etc., as yet lying tranquil in the soil. Then comes Rio Grande do Norte, whose enormous saline deposits along the shore partly compensate for its barren stretches of land and frequent droughts. The following state, CearÁ, is closely connected with the rubber industry, for the reason that on account of the barren sands along the coast, and the inland droughts the male portion of the inhabitants is in large numbers driven to the rubber districts of Amazonas. Seasons not visited by drought are characterized by immense crops and bountiful dairy products. Fortaleza, the capital, with over 50,000 inhabitants, among other nice buildings possesses a great public market of cast-iron. Waterworks, planned on a large scale to alleviate the effects of the droughts, will be highly beneficial.

The adjoining state of PiauÍ, with similar low and melancholy shores, also suffers from lack of rain. A town is spoken of as “having taken the name of a river that was so poor it ought not to have one to give away.” MaranhÃo, the last state before reaching ParÁ and the Amazon, with a large population of negroes, like Bahia, and of Indians in their primitive condition, has as its capital San Luiz, a city founded by the French, and, like Bahia, noted for its literary taste and culture. An indication of this is that the squares, in other cities named after military events and heroes, are here called after poets and other writers.

The great Amazon River, we all know, is the largest in the world, yet its immensity is hardly realized. In size of basin and volume of water it far exceeds the Mississippi. For a distance of 180 miles from shore the Atlantic is freshened by its waters, which vary in depth in the estuary from 90 to 900 feet. Among its 1100 tributaries, great and small, there are seven more than 1000 miles long, not counting the MaraÑon and Ucayali, by which it is formed. One, the Madeira River, has a length of 3000 miles. In the great region which it drains there are 1200 varieties of birds and 8000 animals not found elsewhere, to say nothing of the plants. The soil is so rich that corn is returned 800 fold.

The best time to visit the Upper Amazon is in the dryer season, from June to the middle of October, or in January; the worst is from February to June. The climate of this section is attractive only to those who enjoy heat and rain; the heat is not excessive, but continuous; the rain is often 200 inches annually. Still the climate is called fairly healthy for the most part, with small sections very bad.

ParÁ, the most important in wealth, population, and commerce of the northern States of Brazil, is a name familiar to all, to many simply as rubber, to others rather as a city than a State: improperly so indeed, as the city by its residents is termed Belem. Founded at the mouth of the Amazon in January, 1616, it is younger than the other important coast cities, while the State, formerly a part of MaranhÃo, is little more than a century old. The date of July 31, 1867, when the great river, previously closed to all but Brazilian steamers, was opened to the navigation of the world, is that of the beginning of Belem’s prosperity and wonderful growth. Today a city of 150,000, it lies on the edge of a tranquil lagoon called GuarujÁ Bay, formed by the ParÁ River, one of the several mouths of the great Amazon. Along the city front is a forest of masts and smokestacks, and vessels of every size and character pass to and fro. Fine docks and warehouses have recently been constructed, the work, begun in 1907, to be continued by the Port of ParÁ Co., according to the requirements which are rapidly increasing, since facilities must ultimately be provided for a traffic from an area of the more than three million square miles embraced in the Amazon Valley. A channel 30 feet deep leading from the outer river to the port is marked by 26 modern buoys, illumined by acetylene gas, with lights of 120-candle power intensified by a lens. The port works are equal to the best at Liverpool and Hamburg, having three-quarters of a mile of quay wall with water 30 feet deep for ocean steamers, 722 feet of wall with 12 feet of water for river steamers, and 1500 feet more for smaller boats with 9 feet 6 inches of water. The wall of huge blocks of concrete is of the most substantial character. On a roadway 60 feet wide are electric cranes and railways, back of which are large warehouses. Beyond these is a granite-paved boulevard, then the city itself, with the Custom House, market, banking houses, stores, and all forms of commercial activity.

On the large square, Frei Caetano BrandÃo, in the center of which is a statue of the bishop after whom the square is named, the founder of the first hospital in the city, stands the Cathedral erected in 1710, elegant and harmonious, of rather severe exterior, but within brilliantly decorated in high colors. On the bay side of this square are the ruins of an old fort called Castello, preserved for historic interest. The principal plaza is the Independencia, adorned with flower beds, with lawns, bushes, and trees; but the people here loving nature and flowers, no one ever steps on the lawns or plucks a blossom, which indeed is the case in the other cities of Latin America. In the center of the square is a monument to General GurjÃo, a superb bronze statue of a soldier who died fighting, while he exclaimed, “See how a Brazilian General dies!” At the side of the plaza, Parque Affonso Penna, is the Government Palace erected in 1776, and near by the blue tinted City Hall of colonial days, containing in the main hall a beautiful painting of the death of the great musician, Carlos Gomez, who died here.

In the square, Visconde de Rio Branco on a marble base is the most artistic monument of the city, a bronze statue of the Brazilian patriot, JosÉ da Garma Malcher, with the figure of a beautiful young girl below writing the name of the hero. Another garden, Baptista Compos, is a little paradise with fountains, lakes, bridges, plants, etc.

A unique public recreation ground at the other end of the city is a tract of primitive woods, called O Bosque, dense and somber with great trees which as the city grew in that direction was with wonderful foresight preserved by the Municipality. Driveways were opened disclosing its poetic beauty, greenhouses, cascades, fountains and other embellishments added, making it a resort of which the people are proud.

The usual PraÇa da Republica contains a beautiful marble monument with bronze figures commemorating the proclamation of the Republic. On this square, the heart of the city, is the Paz Theater of white marble, imposing and austere, of the Corinthian order of architecture, with a tranquil grandeur unlike any other in South America. The interior is decorated with paintings by De Angelis surrounded by high gold reliefs, contains a foyer with a beautiful inlaid floor, and has everything in lighting and mechanical devices of the most modern type. The Paz Hotel is near.

Notable churches are Santa Anna, built in 1761, and Our Lady of the Carmo, about the same date, and Our Lady of Nazareth, built in 1802, where seamen especially bring offerings, wax miniatures of boats and other objects of maritime life, forming a curious museum of nautical art.

The greatest interest and admiration may be excited by the Goeldi Museum, one of the most famous in South America, and now under the direction of Dr. Jacques Huber. The building is surrounded by fine specimens of the Amazonian forests with the finest collection in the world of the Hevea brasiliensis, the best of the many varieties of rubber trees; and the experimental garden probably contains every species of rubber known, with many other plants of commercial value. Of equal or greater interest are the archÆological, ethnological, and zoological departments. Here are collections of pottery of extinct Indian tribes inhabiting this region at the time of the Portuguese discovery, with funeral urns and pottery from mounds of the Island of MarajÓ. Weapons and utensils of the Amazonian Indians are shown. The collection of Brazilian fauna comprises a complete series of Amazonian monkeys, a great variety of birds, the larger mammals, as the tapir, jaguar, etc., and insects. Many living creatures, aquatic birds, parrots, toucans of gorgeous plumage, alligators, anacondas, boa constrictors, electric eels, and many others, safely caged, enchain the attention.

The Lauro SodrÉ Institute for industrial and agricultural training, a School of Commerce, a Fine Arts Academy, and other establishments for education, for the sick, and the poor are liberally provided. A fine new Market is not of small importance. The broad, clean, well shaded streets are often lined with beautiful villas and gardens; though but a degree and a half from the equator the heat is not excessive, rarely above 90° Fahr.

Manaos. The visitor to ParÁ, is likely to be on his way up the Amazon to Manaos or Iquitos; if a bit of an explorer, perchance to Bolivia by the newly practicable Madeira and MamorÉ route, or to the rubber regions in any one of five countries. The city of ParÁ, is about 80 miles from the pilot station Salinas; and a further journey of 24 hours, nearly 200 miles, is required, across a bay, then for nine hours through a narrow channel, before one really enters the broad stream of the great Amazon. Along the narrows the landscape is charming; clearings with huts and children are frequent; canoes with fishermen, and small steamers calling at the barracas (plantations) for rubber or to bring provisions are numerous. The luxuriant vegetation is fascinating. But from the remoteness of the shores, on the immense wide river the four or five days to Manaos may be somewhat monotonous. The greater will be the surprise of the uniformed traveler when after 900 miles through the enormous wilderness of forest he arrives at this new city, with a population of 80,000, truly a wonder of wonders. Its location is at the junction of the Rio Negro with the Amazon; one writer says on a large bay, another that it is on the left bank of the Negro eight miles from the Amazon. At all events it has a safe and quiet harbor with excellent port works arranged to fit the rise and fall of the river, about 50 feet. A floating roadway extends into the river, a platform and pontoons supporting warehouses; and ocean steamships come alongside. Hills have been lowered, shallow places filled in, and waterworks and drainage systems supplied; so that a remarkable city indeed is here in the forest. It is said to be the best lighted city in Brazil. The Municipal street, 100 feet wide, is lined with handsome buildings. The Eduardo Ribeiro avenue in the afternoon and evening is thronged with people of wealth and fashion. The Amazonas Theater, on this avenue and S. SebastiÃo Square, is of astonishing magnificence, having cost $2,000,000; its beautiful colored dome is a conspicuous feature from the harbor. The interior compares with the splendid exterior, allegorical paintings by De Angelis, the celebrated Italian artist, ornamenting the ceilings of foyer and auditorium. The Palace of Justice, a white marble building in Roman style, with a bronze and marble staircase, is also imposing. The Cathedral is a vast temple of simple architecture. There are excellent school buildings, a public library, a museum with curious Amazonian specimens, a spacious market cool and well ventilated, and a public garden with music from six till midnight. Electric fans are everywhere in evidence, ice here manufactured is supplied in abundance, and excellent sanitation makes the capital surprisingly free from sickness.

Iquitos. By ocean steamers, the Booth Line from New York and from London, the journey may be pursued up the Amazon as far as Iquitos in Peru, a city of 15,000 population, where the Amazon, over 2000 miles from its mouth, still has a width of nearly three miles and an average depth of 25 feet, twice that in the rainy season. The city is a few leagues below the junction of the MaraÑon and the Ucayali, by which the Amazon is formed. Iquitos is quite cosmopolitan with representatives from various European and American nations. It has many warehouses, and commercial and other modern buildings of brick and iron. One hundred and fifty feet above the river and surrounded by dense forests, the climate is not so bad as it might be, though the temperature averages 85° to 90° all the year around; as a rule the place is not unhealthy.

Rubber is the principal occasion for its being and growth, and its commerce is rapidly increasing. In all directions lie the rubber forests, or more accurately the forests which contain rubber trees. For these do not grow conveniently in groves, except here and there occasionally a few trees, but scattered singly in the damp forest, perhaps 100 or 150 trees in an estrada or section of about 100 acres, an area which a single man can take care of. The estrada is really the path leading from one tree to another. The man, called the seringuero, sets out early in the morning with hatchet and tin cups or basins; he makes on each tree several incisions, 4 to 6 inches apart around the tree. By the time the round of 3 or 4 miles is finished it is time for lunch; then the collection may begin, the tins containing the fluid called latex are emptied into a pail, eight or ten quarts in all, producing about as many pounds of rubber. This is finished by noon, after which the latex must be smoked over a wood fire; it is coagulated on a sort of ladle twirled over the smoke. Fresh coats are added when one is dry until a bolacha or biscuit is formed of from 5 to 100 lbs. The man who does this work may be a native Indian or a resident of CearÁ or elsewhere. He works for a contractor who may employ several hundred. Many atrocities have been committed by these contractors, who have compelled the defenseless Indians to work for them without pay and have inflicted cruelties, torture, and murder upon them and their families, especially in the Putomayo district, where an English Company has been engaged. Through recent investigations the cruelties have been terminated for the moment; but such is the greed and inhumanity of some professedly civilized men that close watch must be kept by humane officials to prevent further abuses and the extermination of harmless savages.

The rubber is collected in this way from trees called jebe or hevea, but there are many varieties of trees which produce rubber of varying excellence. A kind of tree called the caucho which grows on higher land is cut down by the cauchero and the entire latex is extracted, averaging about 50 lbs. to a tree; this is a quality of less value. Brazil has a heavy export tax on rubber, Bolivia about half as much, while Peru exacts less than a quarter.

The terrors, perils, and the fascination (to some few) of the immense and awful forest are in many books described. Few are the explorers who, aided by many hands wielding machetes, have penetrated far into the jungle from the flowing river roads. For their adventures I have no space. Yet in these days of doughty deeds by valiant women, a far more wonderful exploit by one who doubtless had no wish to usurp man’s functions as an explorer may here be chronicled. Long, long ago, in 1769, when the forests were untrodden even by the casual rubber gatherer, Madame Godin, to join her husband in Guiana, left Riobamba in Ecuador with two brothers, a nephew, a physician, three women domestics, a negro servant, and thirty Indians. Having passed over the great mountain range they embarked on a stream, one of the many affluents of the Amazon, to meet with repeated disasters. Their boat was upset, their supplies and baggage were lost. The Indians deserted. A raft being made, this also foundered. Proceeding on foot, lost in the forest they wandered until, exhausted with starvation and effort, they lay down to die. This all the rest did, but after two days by her dead companions, Madame Godin arose. Shoeless, her clothing nearly gone, with no food save roots and herbs she struggled on amid the terrors of the jungle till after nine days she met two so-called savages. These treated her kindly, ministering to her needs till she was able to proceed, then conducted her to a white settlement farther down. As a white-haired woman she ultimately reached ParÁ and joined her husband, a notable illustration of the weaker sex.

The Madeira-MamorÉ Railway. Only the unusually enterprising tourist, the explorer, or the business man will be likely to investigate this new railway, but all may like to know a little about it. The Madeira, the largest tributary of the Amazon, comes in from the south a little below Manaos, and is the outlet and means of access to a large portion of the state of Matto Grosso in Brazil and of the country of Bolivia as well. Continuous river navigation has, however, been impossible on account of a series of 19 falls and rapids on the Madeira and MamorÉ rivers within a distance of 200 miles, thus preventing earlier development of a section rich not only in rubber, but in minerals, and in agricultural and stock-raising possibilities. About 570 miles up the Madeira River is the new city of Porto Velho, where the railway begins, now completed for a distance of 202 miles to GuajarÁ Mirim on the MamorÉ, about due south. Thus has been accomplished a work which in 1869 was planned by an American, Col. George Earl Church, under a concession from Brazil and Bolivia. In 1871 he turned the first sod of the railway, but financial and other difficulties soon caused the suspension of operations. In 1878 another effort was made, also to meet disaster. Today the better knowledge of the causes of tropical diseases and of methods of sanitation has caused the task to be triumphantly concluded. Construction work, begun in August, 1907, was carried on with such effect that in spite of many difficulties the final section of the road was opened for traffic July 15, 1912. As yet there is no fast express, two days being required for the journey. Porto Velho, the northern terminus of the road, on the right bank of the Madeira, is a town of 1500 people, with an ice plant making six tons a day, piped water supply of two kinds, one for internal use, and with wireless telegraphic communication with Manaos, hence close relations with the rest of the world. To this port ocean steamers may come during part of the year, November to June, and large river steamers at any time. The residence part of the city is on a hill a little back. Regular trains three times a week leave at 8 a.m. The greater part of the journey is through the jungle in a cut 100 feet wide, though in places the river is visible, at Santo Antonio a picturesque view including the first cascades. Near Caldeiro Station is one of the worst places on the river, called the Devil’s Caldron, invisible, however, from the track. South of Mutum are 25 miles of straight track passing through an immense rubber concession to the company. At Abuna, 218 kms., where the train is due at 5.30 p.m., halt is made for the night close to the river. Leaving Abuna at 7.30 the next morning the arrival at the terminus should be at 3.15 p.m. Villa Murtinho, 93 kms. south of Abuna, is just opposite the town of Villa Bella in Bolivia, and the junction of the Beni and MamorÉ, the Bolivian city being between the two rivers; the MamorÉ from here south forms the boundary between the two countries. At the terminal, GuajarÁ Mirim, there is another town of the same name on the opposite shore in Bolivia, from which a railroad is now being constructed to Riberalta, an important town of Bolivia, near the edge of the Amazonian forest and the Bolivian cattle country. For the development of northern Bolivia which is drained by the Beni River, this railway will be a great motive power, as also for Matto Grosso of Brazil. An enormous region of rubber and of many other possibilities is hereby rendered accessible, as this great accomplishment is to be supplemented in Bolivia by other important connections. The formal inauguration of the road already long in use was postponed on account of the desire of the President of Brazil to assist in person at the ceremonies.

It is an item of interest that the head waters of the GuaporÉ River, a branch of the Madeira, are so close to those of the stream Aguapehy, tributary to the Jauru and Paraguay rivers, that they could be connected by a canal less than 1000 feet long. Years ago the trip across from the Amazon waters to the Paraguay-ParanÁ basin was made in a canoe by hardy Portuguese explorers following this route, which in the years to come may develop into a frequented waterway.

Any one wishing to make the journey from Manaos up the Madeira to the railway is obliged to pay a tax of 9 milreis, in addition to a deposit of 50$ for hospital or funeral expenses in case he should contract yellow fever or other serious ail, but the 50$ are refunded on his safe return.

On the Way Home. Few will sail away from the matchless harbor and city of Rio without keen regret and the determination to revisit them at the earliest possible moment, though with these once lost to view he may look eagerly forward to the conclusion of the homeward voyage. This at present by the Lamport and Holt steamers occupies 16 or 18 days, which are happily spent on their large and luxurious vessels, the several calls en route relieving any possible monotony. The weather is generally delightful, two weeks of summer, not too hot, followed by one never knows what, for the two or three days before reaching New York.

A few may prefer to take ship to a European port and spend some time on the other side before returning home, but there is no longer a necessity for going that way in order to have a comfortable voyage. Although the steamers of the English Line are a trifle faster, even with the best connection at Southampton or Liverpool the time to New York is longer.

Bahia. About 60 hours from Rio on the third morning of the return voyage, the ship is likely to be at anchor in the harbor of Bahia, once the capital of Brazil, and now with a population of 285,000 its third city. It is 720 miles from its ancient rival. Founded in 1549 by Thome de Souza this is the oldest of all the Brazilian cities and has ever been a place not only of commercial importance but of artistic and literary culture and of sumptuous religious sanctuaries. Until 1762 it was the seat of colonial power. The location of the city on the east side of a deep and well protected gulf is admirable; its beauty would excite enthusiasm if it were seen before Rio instead of afterwards. The name of this city is really SÃo Salvador, while the bay is Bahia de Todos os Santos, Bay of All Saints, the name Bahia of the State having, as in the case of Pernambuco and ParÁ, by foreigners been transferred to that of its capital city. Its appearance is indeed striking, with its upper and lower town, the former crowning a high and almost perpendicular bluff, the latter, looking almost as if it had been pushed over the edge, occupying a narrow strip along the water front, both sections charmingly variegated by dense tropical foliage. Conspicuous from a distance are the great elevators connecting the upper and lower town and many large buildings, towers, and churches.

In a small boat one may be rowed a mile from the anchorage to the landing, then passing to Ribeira street, may follow this to an elevator at the right or by a steep and narrow street on the face of the bluff may climb to the top. By the elevator at the right 15 or 20 may be lifted in a wooden box to the edge of a pretty square above, the PraÇa da ConstitucÃo. At the right is the site of the ancient Municipal Building, spoiled by the Dutch in 1636, later repaired, and recently rebuilt, with a new four-faced clock tower added; but in January, 1912, it was riddled by shots from Brazilian warships on account of an insurrection. A large attractive building at the rear of this square, which formerly was the residence of the Portuguese Governors and the Presidents of the Province, has been rebuilt from the foundations and is now used for the Governor’s offices, his residence being in Corredor da Victoria. The American Consulate is well located on a corner of this square. Narrow lanes of three centuries gone, lead from here in several directions; but some of them are traversed by electric cars which frequently leave the Plaza for diverse sections. A pleasant suburban ride is to the fishing village and suburb of Rio Vermelho, where a nice luncheon may be obtained; one passes on the way out, through some of the fine residence streets, by the side of beautiful parks, and by the lighthouse on Cape Barra at the entrance to the bay, on the site of an old fort. There is a fine view from the lighthouse top, well worth the climb, and one may walk on to Rio Vermelho a little farther.

The narrow Chili street runs from the PraÇa da ConstitucÃo to the Castro Alves Square, 150 feet above the bay, with a Statue of Columbus surmounting a marble fountain in the garden. On one side is the San JoÃo Theater. Here also are the Paris and the Sul Americano Hotels, and the building of the journal, the Diario da Bahia. Following from here Carlos Gomez street we may come to the Piedade Square with a pretty garden, and a marble fountain with a symbolic statue of an Indian stepping on a serpent. On one side of the square is the Piedade Church, on another the Senate House, of Italian style of architecture. Passing the Police Headquarters, a pretty street, Pedro Luiz, with modern buildings, leads to the Passeio Publico, a delightful resting place, the largest and most popular in the city, shaded by mango trees, containing an obelisk of Egyptian marble, commemorating, one says, the arrival of King JoÃo VI in Brazil, another the opening of Brazilian ports to foreign commerce in 1808. At one side, on the Afflictos Square, the thick walls of an old fortress have been remodeled into police barracks. A steep street leads down from the Passeio Publico to a colonial fortification, the Gamboa Fortress at the edge of the water.

The Largo Duque du Caxias contains in a pretty garden an imposing monument of Carrara marble and bronze, 100 feet in height, named the Dois de Julho, the date of the evacuation of the State by the Portuguese troops in 1824, which sealed its independence. At the top of the tall Corinthian Column stands the traditional Indian with foot on a dragon, signifying the triumph over despotism. Colossal figures of bronze represent the great rivers of Brazil, with other accessories making this one of the finest monuments in Brazil. A notable peculiarity of the city is that the monuments are of symbolic character and not of individuals, no busts or statues of heroes save one to the English philanthropist, Dr. Paterson, a physician whose good works were many. In the PraÇa do Riachuelo, which is overlooked by the handsome edifice of the Commercial Association, another beautiful monument, a marble pillar surmounted by a flying Victory, commemorates the triumph of Brazil over Paraguay in the terrible war of 1864-70.

Among a number of interesting churches is the San Francisco, built in 1713 with elaborate and gorgeous interior decorations. The Collegio Church of the Jesuits, now the Cathedral, built of stone prior to 1572, on the Largo Quinze de Novembro, has an imposing interior, the details of its ornamentation, from the design of the main altar to the work in the ceiling, making it perhaps the most curious in Brazil. A Benedictine Church, San SebastiÃo, on a central eminence, is peculiar in being all white inside and out, the main altar and the Saints’ images of Carrara marble, while the two towers and the dome, the highest spot in the city, are white also. Oldest of all in Bahia is the Church Nossa Senhora da Ojuda.

Bahia boasts of one of the best Medical Schools in South America, with a finer building than the School in Rio possesses; this on the Largo Quinze de Novembro. It has also a Law College and other excellent schools, one of the most valuable, a Lyceum of Arts and Trades founded in 1872 with day and night classes, workshops, and class rooms, and 2500 pupils in attendance. A Public Library with 30,000 volumes, a Municipal with 20,000, and still others are of good service to the people. The Poorhouse is an attractive looking place and there are excellent hospitals.

In the eastern suburbs are charming vistas; and of homely; interest are the hundreds of colored women engaged in laundry work along a little stream with the clothing spread out upon the grass and bushes. No machine washed and dried clothing there, but all done in good fresh air.

Bahia is the great cocoa port of Brazil, furnishing about one-fifth of the world’s supply; the State is wonderfully rich in productions of almost every kind. One may ask what does it not produce rather than what it does: coffee, tobacco, rubber, cotton, sugar, nuts, woods, etc., besides a wealth of minerals of great diversity; the largest diamond carbonate ever discovered was found here in 1895. It weighed 3150 carats and was divided in Paris into smaller stones. Gold, copper, and many of the precious stones are found in various sections. Even the sand is exported, being worth $100 a ton; some, at least, of a deposit found by an American engineer along the shore, called monazite, rich in thorium silicate, used for electric lights.

The lower part of the city should not be ignored, for here are the commercial houses, the markets, Custom House, arsenals, Post Office, factories, and many of the stores. There is one pretty plaza, but the streets are very narrow, and at night it is wholly deserted for the residential section above, save for a few of the poorer classes who live on the steep hillside.

On the boundary of this state are the Paulo Affonso Falls of the San Francisco River, worth visiting if time permits; the valley is one of the most fertile regions of the globe. A line of comfortable steamers subsidized by the State, running to Pernambuco, gives opportunity to change at Peneda, about 30 miles up the river, to a smaller boat, which ascends to Piranhas, near the foot of the cataract, 150 miles farther, a two days’ journey. A railway runs from Piranhas to Jatoba, 71 miles, to navigation above the Falls. Pedras, the Falls station, is about half way. Then a ride of two hours or so brings one to the great caÑon. Men living near, for a small fee, will act as guides. There are various rapids and one high fall; the river first compressed by rock banks is divided into five narrow branches through rock clefts, four of which tumbling down 15 or 20 feet become a mass of foam and rush down a steep incline, with a roar audible for miles, in splendid rapids. The four branches soon unite, rushing on to the great Fall, the Mai da Cachoeira, where all five take a grand leap of 190 feet, which may best be surveyed lying prone on a flat rock 72 feet above the Fall, too awe-inspiring a sight to be enjoyed by every one, but to those of steady nerve a magnificent spectacle. A visit to the Bat’s Cave may as well be omitted.

Unless one stays over a steamer in Bahia, one may have but a glimpse of the city’s many attractions and of course none of the unique, solitary, yet some day to be famous, waterfalls. Five or six hours only on shore are generally permitted to the tourist, though the steamer is likely to delay several more after the return on board. But it does not do to take chances on so important a matter.

From Bahia the sail is generally to Port au Spain, Trinidad, where the hours will be a pleasure after ten days on the broad ocean. Once more you are in a land where you will hear English “as she is spoke” in various ways by persons of various complexions. A drive past the Victoria Institute, the Government House, and the market place to the reservoir, the Botanical Garden, and to the beautiful Queen’s Park Hotel will be greatly enjoyed; and the opportunity for shopping in the excellent stores or from the natives who bring wares to the boat will be improved by some whose purses are not yet empty. On the regular steamers, there is no opportunity to visit the celebrated Pitch Lake some miles away, a lake with an area of 114 acres, on the surface of which one may walk if he moves along promptly. This is the main source of the supply of asphalt used in the United States.

The next morning the steamer is at Bridgetown in Barbados, a pleasant old town where some hours may be spent in a drive, a stroll, or in shopping to buy a few curios or embroideries. This is surely British soil, though 90 per cent of the inhabitants are negroes. Near the landing is Trafalgar Square, with a bronze statue of Nelson in the center, justly his due as it was he who preserved Great Britain’s West Indian possessions in 1805. Here are the government buildings and St. Michael’s, the Anglican church. A Carnegie Library and a Salvation Army Building not far away may be reminders that we are approaching home. The Woman’s Self-Help Association, also on the Square, invites and deserves patronage; for Indian pottery and other curios, lace, embroidery, and various edibles may here be procured at modest prices. A house called Wilton at the corner of Bay street and Chelsea road is of interest as being in 1751 the temporary residence of George Washington, the companion of his elder brother Lawrence, who having contracted consumption had come here in the hope of recovering his health. Dying a year afterward, Lawrence bequeathed his estate of Mount Vernon to his brother George.

Seven days later Sandy Hook is passed; the Statue of Liberty, the old and new skyscrapers draw near. Every one is glad to return, however delightful the journey. Some, if not all, of the passengers will in future have a little broader outlook; regarding the Other Americans with somewhat more of respect; well knowing now that there are agreeable scenes to be revisited, remote regions to be explored, and for those who have the judgment, tact, and energy, wonderful opportunities for enterprise.