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eee aa AVENIDA NIEMEYER (LEBLON) RIO de JANEIRO BRASIL A

 
  

Serra de Santos — E, de Sao Paulo,

 

Wapsagem na Serra de Santos — &, de, Saoo

 
July 13, Since the third I have been hereat the Hydricks
in Rio with very little to do except wait for Hackett to come
from the South and enjoy a touch of the civilised life
again, I never have seen a tom as beautiful as Rio, The day

is picturesque, the night is overwhelmingespecially from this

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1 Tar out to the ea “a
1ar out to the ea, EC
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stands eontinens *0 | twies: aaay a the nost ronderful

sete * have everseen ec-once a day to. be accurate. but the

   

damn is as good « as the dusk , The bay winds in anong a

long succession of mountains, the air is filled with a

 

purple and golden haze, the long. stretches of quiet. bay
water shine green-blue in the twilight---well, I cant do
At anyk longer , it ie the most beautiful Place T have

 

ever seen, And then the million lights begin + twinkle

and the moon rises between two steep rocks at the Snprance |

to the NALD ss seeesees dots meaning gewalt, Ir cant stand

tt no longer,

Met a Mrs, Nash yesterday at the International, who

is down here ot & pleasure and business trip with her

 

husband, and who is a classic dancer at home in New York,
Her husband is very amusing and ee ee company, He

a

has been up in Ilheos looking over & Cacao plantation —

  

we ent has been gone 8 weeks, during. which time She wat ted

Se a ne

 

_ for him nervously h here, He had malaria and was afraid to

 

 

call in a local doctor for fear he would say it was
yellow fever and intern him, He was up there with his
step ati & Miss Ryan and: finally they got from Mrs

_ Nash a desperate. telegram ashing where they were and when
they were coming down to Ria Rio, His Sehegran back was
"Keep your tail on the dashboara Ulysses and Circe coming
by the first boat," And the only person Lars Nash could
show the telegram to for sympathy was a Suits who was
just learning English!

 

~ Pete, the Hy@ricks kid is —

   
 

I have ever séen, He is
keen for everything and is
most satisfactory to play

with, He calls me shan-
shan and he talke a won-
derful blend of Portuguese
“\y
> &

e

 

 

and English---"olha! Bichos!
Olha Aqui! Look!” and ne
certainly misses very few Sr
tricks, He goes to bed with
no protests, usually he
announces that he is ready
for it "Queir cama, mamae"
and he hac the other re-
markable virtue of not cry-
ing when he falls dow+-«
they do the sume thing on

these occasions that Jack

 

and Hope Richardsén used to Big Chickens

in not consoling thekiad very often for his hardluck, The
noonday nap he 4s not so ready to take though, and two
days aes when he was told to vae na cama he came back ait
with “onde sta cama"? (wrens te the bed?" - :
The watch on the Rhine here certainly has a Swiss
movement---everybody is at least a Swiss here now and the
number of Danes and Swedes who know German is certainly large .
ast night on the bonde coming down from the Hotel I saw
@ most affectionate and Brazilian fatewell to a family that
was getting on the bonde--- the affect of the numerous adeus
and passa bems was sort of spoiled by one ef the little kids
who bawled out to his father "Wo geht's Mutter?"
3 The weather is glorious and I am very lazy, I want
to get off a few letters to all my young friends before I
go Southe-- for I imagine that once the work begins I shant
have much time for that sort of thing, I keep in the best of
health and everything goes muito bom, Got thirteen letters

for me biethday and what more do ye want at this distance!
 

 
July 20th ,
This is another Sunday in Rio and at the Hydricks, and

I feel much as if it were on leave because I know that

not far ahead now comes work,

The past week has gone in small errands, in seeing the new
office established and in playing about a bit with a few
people here in a very small way,but pleasantly as a contrast
to the rather marked lack of folks at the fazenda existence,
Last Monday we went up Pao dAssucar, the huge rock at the
mouth of the harbor, which shoots up so abruptly that an
aerial cable is the only way to get up to it, It is 400 metres
up off the sea and one of the most remarkable places I have
ever seen for the view of the harbor and the mountains at the.
West , We saw the sunset sky fade out quickly from orange
to red embers and from dull smoky red to violet and then
to night, while the lights along
Copacabana came out twinkling
along a graceful, curved shore,
Then in an hour the sky in
the east grew red and the:
full moon floated up over
one of the islands out at
sea and the moonlight bee
gan, You must learn to par-
don all this deseription---
it is almost impossible to
think of doing anything dowm
here in Rio without thinking .

 

how beafitiful it is, +--every-
where,

Hydrick told me an amusing thing about Elavo, the diener ©
at Sao Pakulo, Dr Darling has made out some tables of figures
comparing infant mertality with the amount of income, Elavo
who is @ wonderfully funny looking coon, very usefull but
terrified of Darling looked at the tables with Closest atte
aN.

 

 

ention, He has been trying to get his courage uP for ox
months to the point of asking for a raise in sale
ary to help out with his new whi te wife of whom he
is very proud, He came to Smillie ana said "How is

‘a man going to raise a child if that table is true?
'z00 milreis most of the chbldren die, 75 milreis

411 the children die'---and he wont give me more

than 70 milreis!# How is that baby of mine going

to get along in this hygiene job!"
There was a neat little skit ink the news

paper yesterday about the fact that Wilson has a

‘appointed a Commission to study the causes of race

hatred in Poland, which is doing so much to keep
the nation from a state of admirable unity, It went
on to say that already the world was the beneficiary —

re of two American millionaires: Carnegie who in 1913

had done so much to promote the worlds Peace, and
Rockefeller whose efforts are meeting with a more
- favorable reception, How can Poland show its afprec- —

4ation for this considerate interest from the Uni-

- ted Sgates? Perhaps the most delicate way would be

to appoint a Commission to go to the United States
to study why the Negroes there were not given their
civic rights and allowed to attain their ambitions
to be regarded as the equals of the whited, and why

the Japs were not getting along 80 _— wel on
the Pacific Coast, :

Incidentally the position il negroes here
and in the North is so nearly that of the whites
that if I were Jim I would look into the feasibi-
lity of teaching Portuguese to the boys at Hampton
They could come down here as representatives of
firms in the U,8, and enjoy & type of life and
climate much more’ to their tastes than anywhere
at home, And complete equality wi th the whites, —
-_ aay
«Just abit of tbme tonight to write an additiomal note
or two in time to get into the mail onto the Byron on the

26th,
Today I have been out to Jacarapagua with Dr, Alvez

taking some pictures of septic tanks which he is forcing

 

the peopie there to install,
They make a good-deal of trou-
ble at first but about the time
the tanks are done thex owners
begin th show signs of prbdde
and swell up with pleasure when
you tell them the thing is very we
well built.
: It was a hot day up there and I
tc” shall notice the excess sunlight
unless I get some glasses to keep

out the glare, The heat as heat is .

 

not excessive though and surely it
would surprise some of the well in-
formed in the Benighted States to
know that Americans are actually
using hot water bottles at night, Here in Rio that is,

I am going to be delayed a little longer in getting to
work in the Sauth, because Dr, Placido Barbosa has taken 2
job as head of the health service in Piauhy and this means

that instead of having a man who can talk English going
down with me I will be alone with the Portuguese language
and heppy days those will be!
Well best of luck and thanks especially for the Lan-

poon which is going the rounds of the Harvard colony here

with a great relish,
July 27th finds me still in Rio buying frying ppns, soap,and

mosquito netting, keeping desperately strict account of all
that goes out of the purse and planning to leave for the South

in three days time collecting the personnel of my survey as

I g°, That means three other new men plus my guarda chefe or
sergeant, so to speak, whom I have already chosen, This being
the last fling I shall have at the English tongue for a while
I have been going to parties a bit and otherwise eating such
hunks of butter as will have to serve in memory to go with the
plain fare to come, I was about to say the Loaf to come but

that would give an unfair idea of what it will prove to be,

for the securing of so much information in three months time
on & limite@ budget and from a crowd of men that will loaf on

the job on the least pretext will use most of the time and

brains the Lord. gave me, @xfhz Of the country I shall see I
know very little except that the life is very primitive and
largely in the saddle, no towns and not much civilization,

 

more hookworm than anything else-+---but of that more when
I am there, )

I do not know how auch it means but the animals here
are all suspicious of man, If you say"hello ket"! to a cat
nearby it ia cnoughee-she cowers and runs, And if you reach
out to stroke a horses gead he rears in apprehension of & blow,

I wonder sometimes that the people do not suspect us more,

88 did a man tother day in the offic., "What 4s thia commiss-
ion of docters anyway"? he said to our factotem, Then all the

pride of Alfredo ‘nigh patriotic labors of the Brazilians in
the Commissao and | Ls prbde in being in it came out and he

told the man how the health of the Brazilians was being bene-
fiteg etc, ete, all ‘for not

said the men after Alf

 

ng , and at no expense, "now"

 

 

jo had finished, "tell me the real

if they are tilt giving Hi story 17 a course in ‘the

“history of the middle west especially, or better of the country

in terms of western settlement and westward @xpension, take it
if Turner is still giving it, Take courses for the nen
not for the subject, I used to think that was the foolest
advice I ever heard,for how was anyone to know anything
with so hodge-podge a preparation? But unless you know
much more than merely the profession or business you are
going into you will get nore for your time from seeing
enthusiastic thoroughness and genius at close range on
some subject you may not immediately calling your job
for life, than it 1s to wade through book after bogk
under some teacher who has no other advantage over you
than that of a headstart in time, A poor sentence fo:
the English of it but the idea is good,

I am finishing this in Sao Paulo where I an fine
ishing the preparations for my dash into the wilds: buy-
ing all sorts of stuff in the way of household furnishings
etc for many a time and oft we shall be provider only with
2 shack and will have to have everything else"found" with
us, It will be the real thing in the line of excitement
and I will be as great a variety for the natives as they

are for me,

As soon as £ get something more than the clean-

Lliness of Sao Paulo to write about I will ,

 
a

Rg sig ane ag R,R,
Auguet the third

Well I am in the sleeping car of this funny little railroad and

Opposite sits & young German talking the lingo with loud gutte

erals with another o/ his sort--- the first long conversations

I have heard since the time when I was interpreter at C, C. S,
45 near Doullens, Gosh less than a ye ar ag,0}

With Joao Miragaya, Jose Machado, and Deodoro Silveira
I g° south to Parena to make an inspection of that neck of the
woods, It will last about three months probably and wild
take me round into all sorts of places, some far from the R,R,
and a good many On the same, The men are my guardas and md =
crospopists and it was very good fun picking them out, It is
my first real whack out @lone since I can remeber and 4t cere
tainly is very good fun, I have kissed goodbye to the old
language I used to be so fond of » to wit English ond an
hereafter committed to a mixture of Portuguese and Bosch which |
will be amusing I am sure, Gosh you'd be amused to see all
these things we pass: men in long flowing shawls and all shades
and races of them too, I am getting a new point of view on
this business of being a foreigner, It may seem funny to see
&@ Dane out here on a lonely fazenda here in Brazil; 4t did to

_ me when I first, saw one blue eyed and towering out in the wilds

but when I came ti think it over I realized that it would not
have seemed queer to see him in pndannne- reid liontana is —

just as much of a c ange for him as Brazil is_ hh from his nat~

 

ive Denmark, It had always seemed n tural for them to come to
us in America, but it seemed very odd to have one turn up in
Brazil! Do yu get the new point of view? S etx Moe

Ther are a lot of interesting people to be met with x

down here, Last, night I went to dinner at the Robert's house

in Sao Paulo, He is a hee kindly he. Peat papannen enctne

 

eon.
Sa as
ee

Westerner trom ‘ane WEST ‘eee Pe 7 Toned and. ne ania
make Mrs Parkman shudder and Malcolm Peabody feel awfully
Christlike and forgiving, but who has a very good head

on her and a very clear mind as well to dealk with all

the things that come up when your husband is gone. some-
times @ year at a time in the woods of Brazil---and believe
me that is a plenty, He is a very good sort and has dene

a lot of surveying work for the railroads---so much life

in the wilds has meant to him the common price dow here
which he has just learned but really does not realise I
think-- the ulcer de Barru or Button of India a disease
which begins as a sore on the leg and ends pretty horribly.
in a long deferred death which no one at home knows enouch
about to make home going worth while, for the treat ment of
4t, As the preceding sugcests the writing was stopped for the
urgent reason of getting some sleep and I continue in an
appallingly and palatially stuffy room in the Hotel John-
scher in Curityba,where Frieda has just been biitted to
naken eine bad fur the herrschaft and things are much as
before Chicken Wheeler announced at the home-coming party she
pad given her in 1014 that there was a war on in Europe,
Gosh I remember that day well! Up in Ipswich, Eve bbe,

We rode all today through high: rolling cool erasse
covered country, with valleys lined with pines of the local varie
variety, which in effect are Like giant candelabra
and very handsome too, Instead of dry gullies as the average
superficial winding depressions would have been in
Coloroado they all had beautiful clear streams of water

flowing on shallow channels in the living rock which un-

 

derlies so closely the surface of the soil, The rock was
pinkish and full of potholes, called here calderao
‘which are all the way from @ soap dish to a barrel in
size and shape and were bright green in the sunlight
with all the clear water in them, A strange effect as of
- tourmalines strung irregularly. But the air was fresh and
cool and in the unforrested sweeps of hills I had all
the reason in the world to imagine ny self well horth
 

—s
A

 

in twenty af

of the Equator and going into Wyoming or Montana instead of

Parana( which is pronounced with the ax accent on the last

syllable), The red dust rose in clouds when the train was

going in the line of the wind and poured in over every thing —

and everybody, but every hour or two we'd come to a lonely
little staion where we ali piled out and swalhowed a small ns
cup of very black and very fragrant coffee and I deckded

NO on the question of doces or the local idea of what sweetes
should be, The engine would wander down the track & bit to

the woodpile and some huskies ould throw big sticks up onto
the coalcar till the thing looked twice the size of the engine

and then we'd go on, When I got to the station I heard "DOATOR

 

VER GRREGY !"B being called so stepped out to see
the Brazilian with whom and through whom all my plans aust

get their accomplishment and found a beautiful smooth article

in a cutaway coat,on the black and white line, white pallid
skin ond black hair eyes and mustache, black tie and gloves,
and all smiles and temporary graciousness, a Hervey Wetzel
of a man with pretence in place of reserve, end slopover in
place of girlishness, I expect to be very simpatico but Re
rather disgusted with him as time goes on, But he is nearly

my contemporary and that will be fun, for the chance I have

to make a ewift and effective survey is godd, if this fellow
is to use ‘the old and honorable idion, HANDLED RIGHT,

s

ten shoud here the churches here on Sunday . A man gets
up in the belfry with & hammer and proceeds to tune up on the
three bells they always have thus: Dee, dee, dee! dec-dee-dee~
deewdee, Dum, dun, dum! dun-dum-dum-dum-dumedum, Dang, dang,
dang! bang-dang-dang-dang-dang-dang. Deedum, deedun, deedumaty
deedum, ete, till it sounds like a ragtime syncopation,
except that ate hopelessly loud even for that, It keeps up
for ten minutes this syncopation from the belfry and ae toeine

nutes all over again,

 

Ba) tom humorously is now to be my official hone

ne

 
you know, the sort of a place like Chestnut Hill,
convenient place to refer to when ushering at a
wedding or when trying to think of some one place on
God's green earth where they could send a bill and have itn
have it not marked :95 =:92:(fig instead of cap)
NOT KNOWN and returned to the sender, Well in case
anybody wants to know where I was raised or where
my home is or anything, tell ‘em I'm a Curgtyba boy
a 4 wont heap of ever having lived in Marlborough
street and that home is home and that’s that!
Good luck on those Giant Slides if as the
paper says the First Division gets home on the 15th
of August, God knows I'd like to be with you but
would amend that to read ‘like you to be with me '
and send the minutes of the meeting thus amended to be read i

read in the upper house,

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