- * en
ee Novembro 22 >

While the fat little Padre is wheedling, threatening, and cod-
dling his flock or various members of it into giving us the nek
horses they promised yesterday for the six hours we have between
here and Crissiuma, I take my Corona in hand---- They are afraid
of rain here and as it was letting down buckets last night as
wetl as atk the hour of our departure 5 am, our horse owners nat-
urally left the business to take its own course and we had no horse ©
Now the next hour is speht in convincing them that we really intend
to go,,,"modo militar" it is called,

Yesterday Was a parrbarridade, We treated 318 of the sick-
est people I aixex have yet am seen, men looking as if they had had
mortal hemorrhages-- weak and stupid they were and took a long
time to answer any question that was put to then, Children it
seemed by the hundred thousand, Gosh what a day! There is genuine
danger with people like that --- the obl of chenopodium may pois~-
on themseverly and I was damned uneasy for the whole of the after
noon, waiting to be called to haul some kid out of convulsions,
or the like, But today all is well and I seem to meet nobody who
is ready for me with the long cooling knife, Graces a Deus,

In the town of Ararangua there is not a street, It is one
vast level lawn 30 kilometers along the river bank, Little box
like casas at great distances from eachother, with a few trees,
and shining beautifully clean in the early morning light, There
is a big horseshoe of blue mountains and a wide deep river runnigg .
to the west of the town,I have been down to swim each day early--
there are few sensations so pleasant as swimming &lone at dawn--
I ahev had but little of it since the days at Saranac Lake, =

There is no reason for doing anything in the world here, The
natives just live and live, If it were not for their peculiar
sad streak and their hookworm they would sing, The women are
all sad-- but they do not kriow it..., I think they dont,,. but
'. perhaps you dont have to know it.

_ It is the fipst time this municipio has had a doctor for
a long time, and I have had countless” wrecks nronent to me to cure,

Christ must “ive = an aeay time-- at if harder to cure the in-

4
incurables by the modern
methods, The stethoscope
gives a prestige that the

results of treatment will

 

prove to be ill-founded,
But still, the hookworm
side of my trade pays
Splendidly for I know that
it is worth while, and even

‘the tratados wax enthusias-
ae

‘tie and claim to feel like

 

dancing for the first time!

 

We could have quite a baile

sometime here for 80% to 90% have H#,

ileal a

 

 

 
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eo

   

 

  
    

“Peace

ink terae of bl

 

     
 

     
 

Like a desert, wherein no single sound, nor smell, nor col

; *

preeminently claims attention, my world of this
limitless and full, with that innebiculate f

ness which without

<

ess, with that >

   
 

 

any natural emphasis is really perfect emptix

 

wandering of notes unstressed whieh 18 no more than any gentle —

 

numming mondtone, I have been reading the journals of Septeaber

  

and early Aucust and some of Oct rz; not as yet ancient history

ey

 

2

for I do not see the papers here,

    
  

ee

 
  

 

prophecies thatgglong since have been fulfilled or else have

the prophets an hours chagrin or an easy alibi. The European
news 4s depressing... "an ant-hill kicked to pieces by a fool",
y more than this, The Bullitt report of doings in the

*

tonfcrence makes me more of an alien than ever to those

 

who have had the direction of affairs: the deep chested ‘en, —

1 ae

whose clothing I used to cut off to their uncontrollable groans

were immeasureably “sold" by those in authority, Thank God I

; eR

     

 

a not in apron strings this Christmas to be led to church to.

 

hemp some preacher wriggle and maggot over 'Pcace on Earth, aad

Will toward Men' 1 I can get drunk or give a hundredtmeatments

for Hookworme- and enjoy an honester form of self-deception thus,

‘But imagine Rleanor, the suffering, and worse than thie the des- _
pairof anything better, and the sense of ‘being sold, Noryally I
am no penny dreadful, but I have no sponge of cheer to soak up

all this agbny, I do not read the papers becuse they are false
much of the time intentionally... ‘but I have seca physical suffer
ing cnough to know what goes on in Rurope, and I have talked to.

working men evrywhere to know that. their side te never

 

given honestly, and to know the bitter stupid revengefulness that

 

keeps on growlng-- and the ghastly lack of any kindly justice

to curb it all, |

It is the custom at home as I remember 1t, to think of m

 

 

     

       
      
 
   

 

 

Lom 4s the only normal state of
ee is ey

 

     
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
   
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  

j

 

Rg

not have honest healthy days when despite a balance in. |

c(or even an agreement twixt the bank and your > |

 

“. : Te 5 ; :

ow check book), despit

-a good sleep and a good job 6 a

 

done during the day, you could weep for the world in
and still feel sane?

: its loneliness and its sorrow-.

 

 

*

a For me there 18 no question about it, and thus I can-

 

guine cult for their

honor that monotonously sa

     
  

_ worship of Good Cheer, Twould a better cure to have

. 4 A : '

somebody weep on me shoulder and try to console

 
 
 

ie } ,
* : i ‘ os. 3 os

out of the poverty of omtles than out of satiet;

”

® ? * : : é ay

We have finished the southern part of the State

 
 

 

 

 

 

and tomorrow start at Piguassu, goon turning nor the
ward for the work of December, The job goes well now,
9 row among the men has blow into clear weathhr again
1. and they have just asked permission for a day off on i
‘Netal' vihbth is christmas ! Not strange tho =
:. for it is no such day as we have at home-= and not ?
 wBually sagh of, #. parte here, We certainly bwill have
a day off on Natal, The chief benefit that I got out
 , of the row was Bonini'’s definition of "Character",
Here it is synonomous with Anour propre=-= & pleasant pep) , :
and penetrating comment on th amount of discipline f
here enployed!"¥rFreud in Santa Catherina" 1s another
“pook my publishers will have to refuse soncday-- tis
‘lovely to be in 4 country almost without repressions,
‘ tie toentine «0 quch of -man paeus Xite in one where |
hhe barbed wire was almost discouragingly plentiful, a

 

     

    
 

 
URES. See ts tte es Voge
PR Le ‘ ‘
fa aie * - * Wee
ih, - * ne tae ?
-

January 14 1920

“Hewan polis

. —-
* : a +

The western mountains are bright misty x blue, the
bay is rough with warm brow waves ahd tlpeups, the afternoon
Summer sun of five thierty is blazing in at the window of my

room here on the third floor of the Hotel lietropole,and I am
“much as Adam considered chic,in the warn strong and refreshing
breeze, with my time quite my own, It is @ three day rest be-~
tween surveys and I am in a civilized hotel with a lot of
Americans, good food and a novel of Gertrude Abherton lying

on my rather erunplea-sheeted bed, Luxury in @ word «= and.
depois @'amanha off we g0 again, this time to Lages in: the
mountains where there will be more of the wilds and the Weste
ern frontier elenent,

‘There’ ® been a pleasant flavor about the last few
days for the reason of being around with. a@ bird named Bennett
Reo Bennett a one time reporter on the New York World, and a
typical rover and raiser of the devil, Not in the roidterers
sense but journalistically, He.-was. the man that found there
was & group of patriots busy buying the rights of the old
French company. in Panama for 3 million and getting ready to
sell the same to the U.S, government for 40 million, and he
took such thorough Joy in showing the scheme up and just who
was in it(Roosevelts brother-in-law)for exauple) that T.R,. &
sued the World for libel..... but was glad to have the suit ®-
clared unconstitutional a year or so after-- and Bennett was
given the honor of a place on the Trade Commission to Brazil
~~~ which he has found an exceedingly profitable country. to
live in, being completely sick of the essence of New York and.
journalism, He is keen and amusing and I have a time with him
every evening, We have variety here in this hotel--- we, _
have @ miserable black-toothed little skinny Brazilian whose
chief Claim to distinction is ‘that he has spent a year and
a half in the Tower of. tondon, for being the paramour of the
famous lady who stole the plans of the British tanks and got
 

was shot, He, being & Brazilian diplomatic

 

them to Gergenx. she
attache was told iver to risk his. life on british soil agein
and so the world is somewhat smaller. than it used ‘to be for —
nam, We have a Sang of the General Electric Company here
naking a survey that will result in a street-rallway in this
funny little Capital, The boss of that gang I heard the
first. night I was here say in the loud voice of his kind, |
"But let me tell you the best fish in the world are the trout
on the Denver and Rio Grande between Pueblo and Grand Juction"!
We have the. Governor's one eyed. and. black-haired son with his

appalingly blond Danish wife, She can talk Danish German and Enge

 

aden, he Portuguese fench and English, They are confined to
a language they neither can talk nor write with ease or even
correctly! It is funny to hear them,

And besides that we have the daily parade out in front of
the Palacio of all the office-seekers in Brazil and all the
grafters. and all the people with an axe bulging out of their
_ pockets-- so ingenuously waiting upon the ell powerful Govern .
or that it is almost opera-bouffe Goverment, Government while
wait, The Conjuror says"Look at the dicky-bird"! (that isthe
beneficent Rockafell' Foodaish sometimes) and evrybody Looks,
and the Governor makes a quick signature with the other hand
and somefeller goes. away from the Palacio SO happy he ke has
to get right out of tow before He tells too many people,
Tomorrow I am Somefeller instead of R&@feBler and I want to
get the Gov, to give me an automobile in to Lages, and he is
going to say "Look at the lulu bird!" and everybody will look
and then I'll get a requieition for an ‘automobile, That is.
called Governmental Cooperation in my Report-- but it treats m
about 150 poor devils that wouldnt gettrested otherwise, i
and what wont a mother sacrifice for her young? Heh? —

The poetic thought ‘came to me this A.M, that St,
Patrick has nothing very much on me, I am casting ‘em out
of a country a good deal bigger than Ireland! Nossa Senhora

olha as cobras!
Lt-a8 true that definitions are always interms of something —
else. “hots of times the Flying Corps lads used to say that enter
ing a eloud-bank at say 6000 feet and after shooting along for
half an hour seeing nothing to steer by, they'd flash out into
the sunshime.... ¢o find themselves upside-down and the earth

far far above them, where the blue had been, That is what it is
like to come out of the wilds here suddenly and try and find out

where youre at and where the wokid has slid to.

Today is a perfectly clear cool day, a perfectly blue day
and the bay over to the Mountains to the West, is a soft ripply
yellow green, 50 lovely a place that it musts needs be the last
port of call and glimpse of Gods green earth for many a 49er on
the Way. to Cape Horn, and whatever that meaat, And a great place
for pirates in the days gone by. Ana a few Perkinses and Taylors
on the north of the island spell whaling vessels from New England

{Nees T sound like the Henty Books, but here somehow it is not
sO haad to believe in then, For instance one gets used to. the
caboclos taking off their sheath knife as a sign of courtesy as

they witer a house, Dulled to the ceremony one stays alime to

the possibilities implied,

Yesterday I had the most delightfully Ciara eye ee
Ive ere been puzzled because I have always wanted to do
more things than I really wanted to'de If I made a list I always
fell behing it, or cmme in like a poor track athlete, completely
sickened and exhausted by the technical vicopry. Then besides
doing one thing with a whole heart makes that one thing change
under your very hand to some thing different and bigger .Remark-
able contrast! Yesterday it suddeniy came to me that the desire
to take some execise. for example or to write or do some accounts
were not ambitions vastly bigger than .the energy ‘éo do then,
Quite the reverse id true: the wished are enormous but they can
only poke concrete little suggestions up through the crust into
our attentions, The thing is like a chick hatching--- the per-
sistent little beak of the wish suggests a definite act and

 
 

oe

Sd Se ree al a ee Eee ee

thus ohly can crack through the shell . THE THING TO DO.

. is to assist, voluntarily pick a bigger hole in the shell -

and then no wonder the deed grows as you g0 on with it,

Lastk night I just barely wanted to take a walk, and instead of

saying " Oh thunder I dont want to take a walk"! I sort of tore

open the resistance, reserve, repression or whatever it is, and .

pasking in the much bigger desire for exercis. that lay below,

‘took a magnificent and totally contented hour's walk along the

starlit peach, That's an‘ epoeheemacins! discovery... and the
crazy desperate part of it is that it is no more communicable
to you or anyone than the experience of swimming or fire or
anything like bin te: And yet a wild anxiety to talk i. omer:

I am swirling about in a gang of Americans here, having
a time before I go into Lh woods again, Last night I talked with
a fat porcine American woman who reminded me of lirs A, who has
lived here for 8 years and knows the natives well . she has
eyes like Bismarck's and yet with all her enormous eating and
driving power quite a lovable creature and the years here have
removed all conversational banis Not exactly with the light touch

but she conveys sincerity and honesty and kindheartedness, The |

marriage customs among the natives here are pretty sketchy: there

being an excess of fidelity over ceremony, Mrs Bennett spends
a endless hot days there on the fazenda making wedding dresses
that hang from the shoulders-- the next week to slave with more

justifiable haate to line the cradle, She told me---we were talk-

}

ing at ee how she and her maid were awakened oe night

after one of unehe paities, by a figure in the room spooping
tomapick up the dress and kiss it, " Probably the girl’ s mother
who died last year-- you know, mighta been PRMD Ler never kin

tell" she said uneasily. They both saw the figure, (Hyslopover)
 

a Lages January 19 1920

"“Engoliou ?

 

imgoliou?" (Did you swallow it? Did you swallow £%?)
. these loud questions my guarda or Gan-nurse shouts to a small
pallida boy who is strug

 

sling with a capsule-- trying to get it
down safely, We are in the spacious committee room of the Local

city hall and queer old Potuguese look down from the walls at the

 

procedure( the town began in 1794) rather amazed would the origin
als be to see the mal de terra actually being cured,, Por here in
Brazil the pallor and weakness and misery of hookworm disease is —
taken with a shrug of the shoulders and a great deal of well exe
pressed horror--- but not much 240,

Tam on the job of finding out the extent of infection
Aina region here in a region about the size of the state of Colo
rado and half of New Mexico-= travelling these last six months
constantly, stopping only a week in each place aid then after |
about five to eight hundred people have been examined clearing

out for another place, Naturally the experience has shown me

    

a good deal I never thought of before, and in this sort of a job
meeting usually with the boa vontade of the people I am ina
position to see and be told things that an ordinary stranger
apesnt get to see, After this survey is through with we shall
establish posts for the intensive treament of the infected in
the worst places, and by treating the people to &@ cure show them
what they could be having in the way of health, and with this
extraordinary lever inculcate the primary ideas of sanitabion
into them, The curious thing about it really is that the scheme
worke--- they are profitting by it and adopting Glowly the ideas
of hygiene, And when you reflect that it was only in 18659 that
: ‘the courts of Parliament in London had to close during the summer
: sO horrible was the stench fron the Thames fron poor.y disposed

waste, or that the connection of sewres with the municipal drains

of Paris was prohibited by law up till @ 1880<--« perhaps the

 

beginnings of sanitation here do not seem 20 insignificant,

But. omitting for the moment this genera) nett, wich

 
 

 

 

takes much of the time of my day-- perhaps sould be amused to
read of Other things less technical and more amusing,
‘Brazil is a mediaeval country with: the constitution

of the U U.S.(practically) ehoved dom over it like a oil hat
upon the head of a Roman plebe, tt ; gives rise to incongruities
a especially when the transportation is etil1 80 ineffective
that one region differs enormously from. the’ Other in almost OV=
ony way. The Brazilian is one of the most easily governed men in
| ny experfence, In an enormeous jan of people in Rio you can
always move easily by say "Com licenca!"-- and they always give
way, They cannot resist persistent and gentle pressure-- it
Wwearsa them out completely! They never will refuse any thing
done slowly and quietly, My employees when I give then a

a choice as to where they would like to work Look quite
pained and one began gently to tell my the custom in Brazil

 

Was that the obligation of the employee was to do whatsoever
the parao wished «-- and not to choose his service at all!
Imagine being lectured in @ modern state on the h obligations

» of the employee} But easy as these people are to lead like
children, they have had no expericnee and with their system

: of family life arid schools never get the chance to know the
technique of government of others, Governments here are strong
on just the same principle that little boys armies keep their
unity--- many titles and everybody happy--yes, a touch of imper
sonal ‘good of the service' and the opposition feels a sudden
‘accession of strngth and you are back where you were if not
even furhher back, |
‘Looking back upon the U.S, at this distance our national
interest no longer seems to be liberty-- more it is production
that we care about, The men who ‘menace liberty are excused if
they are producers, Here Liberty still flourishes and I have
never seen so high a per cent of people who ean and do do
suet what they like, And incidentalyy a producti on ao Bone sae
ately inconvenienced by that same Frectee.

But to leave ; generalities, # ges is ans the high rolling

oe
 
 

 

planalte on the other side ef the coast range from the low hot

 

coast line, It is midsummer but deliciously cool here, Frost
fell last month and in the winter they have it around ten above
our zero with snow, The lands are enormous and the life is all
cattle raising. Horsemen in big and beautiful woolen pallas or
ponchos, high loose leather boots, splendid horses and with
@ silver dagger if not a Golt revolver tucked a wee bit out
of sight, Rare women, rarer ladies, Coming in we passed ‘@ huge
herd of beeves being driven to market-- thousands of then, the
cowboys in huge hate chaps and leather lasso, The ‘screaming
part of this Wild West is. that they will ride leagues and leagues
to see and enjoy an American Far Ooest fila, They think that

Tom Myx and Dustin Farnum are eimply gode-- and like many anothe _
er thing in this Here” World’ the a@miring audience 16 more neare
ly the real thing than the actors, It would be more than they
could bear to think that hone f1ims( and the moving, pictures
from America are worth more than .our entire diplomatic corps

on

an! all the fool trade coumicsions in the works for the pur

pose of an entente cordial betwean the U.S. and Brazti)teould

‘be unbearable to think that in the Far West we no longer have
plunging bronchos and flaxen haired schooltcachers and despere=

adoes ote etc, But here I passed a bunch of horsethieves and

twould take some little making up to look their equals I can

assure you, Living under lean-to tenta with their Guarany or

Botucudo halt breed women; and horses! I should aay 60, a
scattered all around in the. beautiful grassy plain. where they | ; 4
were camped, a

The per cent of infection here will not be over 13%

where on theother side of the mountains down on the lovely

paluy tropieal 1s ttoral we have seen no place that had less.

 
  
  
   
 

than 8&8, Saver as 96 and above, And very very Sick people,
‘The practice of a eluilar form of belief to Christian
science is very common here, The Curandheiros or benzoadors |

can manage a disease very well at a ale tanee, end the Catholic 2

 

: prieste are not | far behing. A carandheiro cures but a denzoador —

    
 

 

 

 

 

 

are righ

or blesser can avoid such things as the evil eye, cattle
pests flights of grasshoppers ana frost, I know a priest
sho sola l&ttlée calico flags at five mil a plece-- value
here about (5-- to keep the grasshoppers off, They did
not work very well-- but he said he had splendid silk

flags at 50 mil that would work wonders! This being, more

money than a caboclo sees ever at one time-- naturally

4% could not be denied that these big flags are good,

I know ar intelligent American women-- even of the Bad)
followers are intelligent-- who here employs a blesser
for her ranch ond believes in him, She has eeen the cock-
roaches in droves swept out of the house after his prayers
and she is no questioner of HOW it is done}--- she wants
the results, Instead of people heing angry at such atup
Laity twould be better for medicine to learn what happens
and simply show if possible that with a pheicul cause it
works better to have a Bhakaazk physical remedy, Instead
of flying into. a passion with the people who have found

spiritismo to worka as well as anything else, For if we

 

t the thing to do is to prove it.