Brazil, the Amazons and the coast (1879) (14596677970)

Identifier: brazilamazonscoa00smit (find matches)
Title: Brazil, the Amazons and the coast
Year: 1879 (1870s)
Authors: Smith, Herbert H. (Herbert Huntington), 1851-1919
Subjects: Folklore -- Brazil Brazil -- Description and travel Brazil -- Economic conditions Amazon River Valley -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's Sons
Contributing Library: Brown University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brown University



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e folding-doors ; an old negro comes up,with bowed head, and straw hat held humbly against hisbreast. He swings the door open for us, and we clatterup the gravel walk to the proprietors mansion. It is alarge, low building, tile-roofed, and kalsomined with somelight tint; there is a shady piazza, and a few floweringshrubs grow in little enclosed spaces before it; beyond this,we observe no attempt at ornament. In front of the housethere is an immense, smooth pavement of concrete, occupy-ing half an acre or more, with a low wall around it; this isthe tciveiro, on which coffee is dried. Beyond are the vari-ous mills and workshops, and the negro quarters, opening THE STORY OF COFFEE. 513 toward the masters house ; there may be twenty buildingsin the cluster, all neat and substantial, but as unpicturesqueas possible. ** Come in, come in, gentlemen ! cries Senhor S., meet-ing us at the steps, and shaking hands with us as we alight.S. is a great, burly fellow, rosy like an Englishman, and not
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Coffee-plantation in Southern Brazil. at all ceremonious. We are invited to seat ourselves on thepiazza, and S. reads our letters ; we explain that we wish toremain for a few days, that we may study plantation-Hfemore closely. Pois nao? Why not? A room shall be prepared atonce. Meanwhile, let us breakfast. As S. is a bachelor,33 514 BRAZIL. there are no introductions. The breakfast—a very goodone—is discussed amid much pleasant conversation. Twoor three negro servants stand behind our chairs, but, likemost Brazilian house-servants, they are more for showthan for use. The dining-room is large and bare ; at oneside there is a writing-desk, with a few books, mostly Por-tuguese or French agricultural manuals, and governmentreports. Two or three unartistic pictures adorn the walls;the furniture is solid and angular, and badly matched. Re-tiring to the parlor to smoke our cigarettes, we find thelatter apartment very little better. There is a piano, ofcourse ; the furniture is rich, but