Lages Janeiro 25 It is & cool clear refreshing afternoon. wh th but little going on. Silveira is sitting in the big room of the intendencia wanting cards and talking with some of his fellow Rio Grandenses and I have nothing to do now that the accounts are ‘ali up to date, — p These big rolling hills with their sandstone cliffs arc. continu : ally shifting color under the banks of rail bis gray and whi te clouds that. go rolling over then, a few urubus well up in the _ sky are circling patiently and waiting for something to arop dead the lojas are all sleepy and the horses are awishing flies in a lazy shade, sh i ‘ I do not suppose that outeide of Brazil exists the same pure mediaeval spirit that exists here, A tall horeesman from Rio Grande haa just come in, emi ling & most delightful clear and ure " susptetous unpolished smile, alt. courtesy and gentility, not with the greasy grovelling of the Saxon race but with a childish and — yet selfrespecting independence. I cont ‘suppose: that his aasegusar whe sits in the other room smoking a consolatory Cigarrette has ever seen the railroad nor does Bhe know more than the squires daughter in an England of L740, The daughter is bony and imperson- eh mindeds and reminds me just a speck of Emma ilandell, They are the people whose Simplicity of epirit makes this Job we are doing seem perfectly natural to Che meee o= they always: have accepted easily and with 2 smile of 5 sratitude and have given with less consciousness = being & giver than any other people I have ever seen~~ and it seenis perfe Gbly natural to them that we should he doing this, Not 80 the more sophisticated-- who assemble in groups to discuss in an undertone what this Commission is doling anyhow, If you wanted an iliustration of what an open heart be worth you'd find it here, The eimple people reap all the benefit that thex' wise’ leave in suspicion, * The qmtrance of a cleanly and well dressed Aun peing ints this consultorio nearly does me in! To think that there ean be people who wash with a true Anwa: ra. gon to 2. clean all over, peole who like to keep their clothes all clean, who take the sane AF, care of thenselves that we usually ony to pet dogse=-that causes a queer rush of tribal feeling to go over Le == some- what akin to the feeling you have when when you, see a friend from Colorado Springs whom you have always known and liked suddenly coming upon you in say the fifth week of your tay in the stock yerss re carpet cleaning cotablichaent or. in the hold of a mackerel schooner , you straiten up and A they look: Like nice pink and white Apalaos and Dianas dropping down from another planet. “the Brazilian caboclo has an odor of o1d old bacon, nna about hin-- it is so pleasant eo find a somebody who hasnt, I met 2, nice o1a German sho has been, collecting butter- flies for 20 years here, He really collects the cucoons and raises the Lat butterflies themselves==- eb in this way he gets better specimens, He has just shipped about 25000 to Kkrp Europe and has collections of 540 different species, This I must look into, He was one of these people who eime ply adore Ncture, They always have gentile kindly wives-- who treat them in a motherly sort of way and ocoasionally a oe with a passion for meakbne money--- just to keep the bale ance in the family. He had, Nimrod was fond of hunting-~ but where 1s the man in the Bible or ‘in ny thology who mas fascinated by Nature. This man Hudson, W.H, HUdson, whose "Par Away and Long Ago" is a “very good description of that disposition, is the best example I know of the sort of per- son whom watching, Nature charms completely, They ‘keep on coming-- lora what an immense varlety-- some giggling others erying, some trenling, OUET. appapent- " ly without a nerve, some anxious to talk others on the de- fensive and silent, soem thinking that a P.E. is moral and above board others thinking that the medice is « necessary immorality, --- what an endless varlety-= all in one little municipio which has never seen ‘the light of day. Day after tomorrow dom to Plorisnopolis en ‘to start the vork on _ the Tina ¢ or Asland, — } Lages Santa Catm Catherina When I settle as long-as.8 days in one place I begin to go dry for material to make letters out of-- and thus through suffering, as the Character Building Books tell us is sympathy enga _endered, and Iam able to forgive all me friends --- and in fact to be more than a ligtle grateful tothem for ali that they have con- tributed towards the fine work of Americanising me For indecd | you'll have a rank furriner in your midst &2 when I return if 1% werent for the fine line of uplifting letters and depressing news- papers, As Mire Rice observed in a priceless letter not long ago, 4."I do not know what we are coming to in this country, The hunting © season has begun and is splendid fun? Indid@idually you seem to : - prosper but the State seems a bit off ite feed, This is a most interesting country, It iss 24 hours in- and over the mountains by a Boowheek (Buick) automovel and like Some little time, _ there being no railroads. within five days horseback, It 's Virgin Coffee. ka has not. heen. touched. for is 4 high Polling country and is nice and cold even in, this midsummer weather, Last. month (comparable to June) they had a@ frost and the nights are always cool, But aside from this real estate’ arip the really intere ting thing io that the people are &ll1 well removed f om any for of outside contact except Fox and Triangle Films from the U.S. and the life is really that of the Argentine pampas, more _ then of Brazil, There is a Reavy, Indian streak and no little negro which ise mixed with Portuguese and Austrian and German , fhe men are all horsemm and more or less gunmen and certainly. handy with a knife if need. be, They very politetly disarm when I examine. then _ and old cap pistols and 15 inch knifes. arent the rarest things I h have geen, The life is olosely aichn to that in Maine in those haleyon months of the year when there is but Little fiehin', A ere tall Italian doctor who got nie ‘boiled on beer yesterday says that he is raising aoney for a statue to 6 Trabalador de hages" (the worker of Lagea) to be put “P in the Praga here in tom and it : ’ 5 ‘ a = \ oe Be ee: Ck se : * Menlo eae +4 , ‘ Mid e - : Meet e oe ae. 4 ‘ ? a ae ee gee ss ie ah Ag Ra Ba Mh. 5 i Coes ue ae ae Sree pee =e eee Subst aah ee say Hec 9 gh ST Df 2 ae ae ‘will be & tauro, He was a good 01a skate ‘thie Italian and gave me a good many points on the local customs and diseases that I ahd not known of before, All the old schodl type of drinking-- refusals of one more treated as an undebatable absurdity, Always crashing glasses on against - the other and never saying Saude or any toast--- in a word a professional! Which sets me to wondering what ia the state of drinking at home, Is it much the same in the the ‘small pinces? I should think the dances must hove presented a 8 rather. sma aller number of Pranko Frenches and Minots ee _ themselves into a corner! ‘Less "awfully funny" men for the husky Priecillas to leap around with, | “Which leads me by @& more abrupt transition to agk you hows all and what goes on, It is pathebic to see that 7000 miles really is some little distance, But I do not ex- pect to be gone forever-- so whe te the difference, ‘There is one charming thing about these Brazilians that: T know I shell notice by ite absence at home... they are the most auctile malleable tensile and polite people on the face of the globe, It is nothing to 48k a kid you ahve never geen before to g ona half an hours errand for you, &&he Yast says "Peis nao" and goes, You could spend three weeks as a total stranger in any one of these fasendas and have ‘anything you wanted-- and 4t would be all siiles and dignified politeness, Really a remarkable thing. Well here comes almogo in the shape of a little nigger who'll say in a high cracked voice whth infinite dignity "Oo Senhor Doutor a boia sta na mesa!" which litterally means that the bull meatis on the table-- at times not a greut ways from veing a highly descriptive announcement, Plorianopolis Febru: iry i 19% 20 I cot back from Lages on the 26th and have “been here rather without much variety since then: waiting for the month to end and my usual task to fall due of naking up all the different accounts, This job will see me a complete accountant on the latest plan, be- fore I: am done with it, T am really glad to find that nonthly statements are getting easier as time , goes on, As I shall soon be running a fifty-thousand dollar budget here it is about time! All Last night I played a little bridge with the Westinghouse gang here-- engineers a month out from New York-- and 2kn got a little reat from the endless recibos and conhecimantos of the day, But really my news is mostly of Lages- & hdgh cool place 270 kilometers inland where I ate armadillo jsut freshly cillowed out of his armor, and. where t thoroughly enjoyed the energetic and cheerful people, and their cold climate, The caboclos there too were charming: this old bird was all smiles and "sea-shoresk , They have one delightful phrase ther on meeting eachother, It goes" Ah, como vae! Coma passa axSi Vossa Signoria? Como passa Sua Obrigacao?" (How is your gentleman- ship? How goes your obligation"?-- Ana that means ‘your family!x' Another point about those caboclos-- when they meet they shake hands reach out. and touch eachother on the chest and then ° Shake hands again! If on horseback they shake and then pat eachother on the innej side of the forearm and then shake again, It is a solemn ceremony-- and reminds me of the College Widow of George Ade's and the fraternity handéhakes tnéreor, The Cariocans and Paulistas laugh, but it 15 no worse than ABeir terripie embraces and scapula stroking! And the sing song of the talk “ here! I never have heard its equal, Especially such a word as obrigacao, I diearned & delightful thing. dast night at the table. Many times here if a general here wants a bit of @ show at the Station, or on the Street-— to show that he is some body~-— why he can hire & few soldiers! They ga" OF a rented by the asy-~ p Think of & discipline 30 rigorous | ‘that soldiers need to. r3, Ingleze_ver as the phrase is, be encouraged by. pay for a little private parade, oh well the Bos ton police hac the same idea in mind perhaps! It Ls said that Brazil had officers enough for ten million men during the. wary Privates were rather expensive to hire then though, and vven the gallant, marines revolted when they or EPR S «: bo their terror that they, were being, sent beyond. Ba~ hiat It is queer for us, it always will be, to understand then, Why should the aireet descendents of a race thats show~ ed the world what @t1ectpline and. order. could do, be the very ones to be. 60 > hopelessly deficient, in atectpline and. order now? ae PoP eee There is a man named Hart here in the Westinhouse crowd who was in the Construction division of the engineers in France, ‘gust the Gane time I went over he went but he stayed 6 months longe hy He confirns the idea, I have of the isolation from all home-keepers that, the overseas crowd have come to have, He too cannot understand the Cabot Lodges, nor can he find a real issue in all the row going on over the League of Nations, I showed him the verse of Sassoon’ s called the Counter-attack The place was rotten. with ‘Anes: serine ‘adiiiaid: ‘legs. High-booted, sprawled and grove&led See ee ere And trunks, face dotmward in the sucking. mud Wallowed 1fxe trodden sandbage loosel fitted, : And naked sodden buttocks, mats of Bulged, clotted heads slepy in the cee wate lime, - And then the rain begane--_ the Jolly, old rain! | +-- Of course having, experienced this we should. be extremely cautious about binding ourselves as a nation to prevent 4t, Hart and I "agreed" about whe I got. a telegram from Hyaricx in Rio anata: that candy of food Was there for mé to the tune of and other fo: me ' ten or fifteen dollars te be Sung to the Customs House peobe, I told him Le pay and. eat the perishables-- put I - Hope that anything will ‘be. sent to 61 Broadway in the fmbut reyare ite 30 much easier and shorter, The alfandega (customs ) is ‘the most irritating thing in ‘Brazil, and that is a pretty handsome compliment, ‘ splendid isolation would be easier than to receive a package from unknown source and then have a fat mulatto official steal half of at and charge you for what's kx wish sim would come down here and see what a, wonder=" oud social position the negroes and mulattoes have here, I never , realised how neatly subjugated, they are in the U.S, until I see them expansively eubracing some blonde here in the R Re station or at 4 . & public neo tin o gt $ _— & coon with any education ra come to Brazil-- they gain more than they Lose by Leaving the USS. Portuguese is onay to pick TF and the educated coon here is just the same as a white, One of may boys is conpietery forgettua of color-- he never renen bers to ‘wa at down on the census card, and all the rest too draw almost no line at all, The trouble is that the black race has no more wanderlust than an ebony newell-post and they never will get up and do something really new, That was & great find Mother made of her mosaic pin: the mosaic law of chances seems at variance with the common law, I wish I could find two or three of the things. I have lost here in the same cheery way, I am preparing to enter the needles eye it would 5.@em by the way things are dropping from me, Develops a cold and ascetic attitude - towards the baubles of this world to lose one P KN, ( pre re nata, Mother, you never let a pkece of slang slip by, Til bet you were fierce at 1S). one month more and this Suitecase life Stops for & while, I'd Like to have Elinor and Marjorie down here to. fit up some swell little seaside bungalow and stock the guarda-comidas (ice-box) with mamao and abicate and abacaxi, ‘Then, oh then there would be fruit eating and no more carne de porco, Weel thats naw an eempossible plan, however, Florianopolis is a very pretty and breexze-combed town, and there could be worse things in February, Having, sat here in the buff, in a north-coming sunlight that makes me wonder whether and why I dont look shiny red like a thin hand over a strong flash-light, I will.now.snak down to the bagnheiro and turn on the crank marked chuva (pluva in Latin) and take me a bath, Good luck and my love to the whole Tribe . Lages, Est. Tees na asso Eee Me aes h aK Palacio Municipal. i i ij a \g I wonder 4f anyone ever mote --or could wite what. was really happening to him? Do. you suppose 'tHould be comprehensi- ble, or entertaining or vith the least value ate all-- this complete fuse of binnen-leben with @ lot of sighte and sounds and amells, Now take my soap tor example, I cant convey any- thing at. all by saying that ay cabin on the. Hollandia going to Rio was a delightful place, that I liked the roll of the boat in those enormous shining blue. sunlit seas, and those suoky-burning stars. that. popped out at night, ‘that Schweebroek | the steward was ROO NE 5 that the food was grend, and that it was the first time I had gone a-groping alone, that everybody on board nearly ex- pected to make or break thenselvec in the~ ‘country | we were rolling» to, I cant convey Lt at all. But if you had been there( my trunk at full of soap) all that, would be necessary would be to hold up this ceke I' ve. just. found today and say "! vember that" and ; you'd. say "Gosh! The Hollandia! I should say. aor". Weil that isthe sort. of thing that living here 1s all woven over Ber, thousands of new things . and. nary & chance to call up wore by the mention of them than at best a weak Burton Holmesickness, and. remark about' what ann interes ting!-da-da-daah it's pathetic this letter business} But of course thore are limits to this gloomy diatribe against literachoor in comparison with perfume as a form of Spiritual correspondence y For example it takes no very great energy for you to, picture my overweening pride when I tell you I was invited to be the Godfather of §he Totary Public! 8 oat illegitimate oftepring-- a tremendous Cathedral service, 'n- evrything, that, I, shad to pass up at the last, minute because I a turned out. ‘to be not a Catholic, But you cant gay that the. I1lmo, sr, Dr,: Alan Gregy hasnt. had honor proferred him in his Heydays! But they hurried ‘out a& mere Brazilian “compadre" for the kid, ‘and Coronel Jose ; Rame wT, a oe ame : were able to OAS along without or me, I was bored rv ‘tears to be ‘incon and now th 3 x have the being-a-godfather-to-a-?-0f fepring as a re- pressed wish that leaps’ to my harried consciousness every tine I pE maned by the church! ‘ Theré 1s a a acne of American engineers here ading’ the typical act: crabbing incessantly and talking with endless beers Long into the night about New York ete etc, How they crab the Brazilians! I am in’ possession of enough ~ facts and stories to work their yee into rabies grave--- , and it's a pleasure to work "en up to fever heat every _ evening and send ‘em stambling and cursing off to bed, It ip that there are few countries as thoroughly irrit- ating 48 Drazil, to © person who makes no intelligent efforte to anuse hingelf, But I cant miss the chance of Gre: suse men to a boil; they are so bringing the childish and so ‘provineial even’ as a New Yorker is pro- vinclal, and 80 pothetically at the mercy of small things, They are the sort to dislike the Notre Dame because the chairs arent decently comfortable, Their boss was in & charge of the first three years of the excavation of the Grand central Station, has built a power plant in the Pyrrenees 6tc, and has a very red-mottled face, very big even, tobaceo-yellow teeth, and gets irritable if you dont drink 2. cocktail with him‘ before dinner, He hae a curly} lipped professional smile, and blood-shot eyes, and I xk dike his directness--- but not much else, I think that I dideve tad Bare?y wonens superior pity of men when I see “ii Eldredge with @ listener, @ dependent, or a stake to win, Women can be all three--- and Mr EF, can be very easily — manage d ‘by the bird in the cage, Rabsner aR Tagore gets off what would be a cute remark if it didnt” take him so dong: "It is only when we get: to the point of letting the pird out of the cage that we realise how free the bird has ‘Bet ow on oS” Man eee ° BAND SORT It is @ Sunday afternoon in a tiny fishing, village on the coast of the island of Santa catharina s @ dozen } pickanninnies and ‘whites” are strutting about. under the palms wit! swords and 8linss hade of sania stems, and our work goes slowly for the moment, cam There, are few things more simple than a Brazilian fishing village: if they werent so cc it would be idyllic, these big Salling, cane oes made from, one piece of wood, one big log hollowed out, these brown, bare- legged fishermen. stalking along in the flate at twilight casting the big skirte ike nets and dragging in the. shrimp and dumping them into withe baskets, the wandering path along the shore, children weeping with hunger if the fishing has been poor (for they are absolutely poor here) and sick . yellow women squatting in the doorways. or making, native. lace. at a tremendous. speed on. the wool. or rag-stuffed. pill Out on the beach they may be making their twine on. spinning jennies rigged up on the beach: the mother seated and surrounded with children while the hisband works peacefully, and occasionally shouts to the man at the other end. of the long twisting. twine-- while the pet. pig in a very playful mood bowls over the baby, All this I sa $9 last night and talked with them for a. while and a heard about the local. curandeir or magician who.can cure snake os *. bites by thought transference and force of will and absent. treate ment, or write a benze. (blessing: for your roga that will keep off the grasshoppers, and why. the, police came yesterday and caught Esidio. “anoel ce Jesus--- and other bits of news, Then I came back to the Club (pronounced clooby) and in true. Brazilian style hung. from the windows for a. while. wabching,. the, summer sun's. a, as ae Ps coming ana arréen; red three Microscopes One Wit~aA & CicaYr 11040 ¥ ; wt @* ‘ee Se 1 | oe oe fm a ny oe aay eed Ae “Teg, Bre ey HR y See vay © ee i gi par a 4. 7, es er O 8 Yio {,! ling, aT Cr 1 1 sd } gd Gi ié 6 tne z, yy > vi 4 bid BO tiie hi rij é wae %e ‘ * ia > " i ila i, Bien ee? > + em #4 . ey FSS oa oy roe 4. Yo “ Arrived a doctor at the ompty microscope “nc peered down the GX- £ ae "a i Ti te oS ye * on™ » » i, 2% ey ? my, * et s e ge o, 4 * i ay a of om, € #7 parrel ,«-= Hieo by George that's a beauty eh Doctor’ —" ile wn on At ogee ati, "et “ ds. Ye ~ % a £2 ms ee Me ot In comes a girl of twenty <-- motner O21 five ana & ne , isiin, Aaa & he aaa re ot, a@s gt — “5, en 4 still very pretty, wna @ country! ‘sy ns “ery 1 , f2 3 1% Put ot ay1ti ri th 7 50 Lne Wo J 4 i md y oT dn tA Ui cL AA Vi ie bs " -Riberao ne * & “Pe ee ' oe Your double ds here and you ahve ro. more chance in the world--- because youre way off and she is right here! I call her :.; =~ which she cant pronounce, bub she smiles the way you do-- not Just the way because r*il admit nobody can do that -- but she sililes and promises to bring me flowers very soon, And she has just sata of your Cigarette holder "Que coisa linda = para um mogo tao agadavel!" and you have 10 wore idea how that Eka sounds j ‘ghe thinks " What & ‘beautiful thing for euch an agreeable 7 OUnE fellah"! and she says it right out with u fright- ful sigh at tne end, Last night she saad "was ---que boca linda hc ‘tem dentes quebradas --neniaua! " (But what a beautiful mouth you have, No broken teethe-no not one! ) She is twelve and she is the original cheery spirit frou the forest, Last night we danced--I didnt dance I was the orchestra roaring, Turkey in the Staw ana beating Upon a tin can to the un- limigzed joy of twenty small i kids many pickanhhies, “who danced three and four rounds without the least exhaustion and then came rye begged for more, I sang ‘em the Pig ae ard they called 4b uma especialidade and shen I bought a whole mid reis worth of candy they all ahd to say good ndght three times and kiss any hands fervently with many wishes for good fortune in aarry ing the wost beautiful lady in th 1e world, I line of simplicity and charming manners that is hard to beat, When I read aloud in English they screamed with pleasure and begged for more, and ran wildly up and down the beach FOrIIng for thetr monies to come, and hear 0 Doutor Glegey. i ; Yesterday I found by the roadside an interesting plant that looked like, 6 fern but if you touched it ever so iightiy it Closed all the Mitre leaves and folded its sven Phgnt up 80 quickly that you, had to pinch very — to catch a leaf open between thumb and, foref inger, ‘8 —— ‘You have heard of phosphorescence in the tropical waters, last night | as usual and never have | 150 Americans, And not one. rad i i us . 4 oS i = wea Pa — — ae aloe 3 * ’ ? i “- + & cate ool 3 $5 608 and , ghybaie to He A. x where in the world the World is, My enenorada. is asking if I am single or married ! sya T am bored with her---1 shall have to close and x | %