_July 28th._—Bahia. Half the enjoyment of life borrows intensity from contrast, and to this principle we certainly owe a part of our pleasure to-day. After three half sea-sick days on a dirty, crowded steamer, the change is delightful to a breezy country house, where we are received with that most gracious hospitality which relieves both host and guests of the sense of entertaining or being entertained. Here I have been sitting under the deep shade of a huge mango-tree, with a number of the “Revue des Deux Mondes” on my knee, either reading or listening lazily to the rustle of the leaves or the cooing of the pigeons as they patter up and down on the tiled floor of the porch near by, or watching the negroes as they come and go with trays of vegetables or baskets of fruit and flowers on their heads, for the service of the house. In the mean time, Mr. Agassiz is engaged in examining the collections made by Mr. Dexter and Mr. Thayer during their visit here. They have been aided most cordially by our friend Mr. Antonio de Lacerda, at whose hospitable house we are staying, and where we found our travelling companions quite domesticated. He received them on their arrival, and has given them every facility during their stay here for the objects they had in view, his own love of natural history, to which he devotes every spare hour from his active business life, rendering him an efficient ally. He has a large and very valuable collection of insects, admirably arranged and in excellent preservation. They are also greatly indebted to Mr. Nicolai, the resident English clergyman here, who has accompanied them on some of their excursions, and put them in the way of seeing whatever was most interesting in the neighborhood. On arriving in South America one should land first in Bahia, for in its aspect it is the most national and characteristic of the cities. As we passed directly through the town this morning, we can give but little account of it, and yet we saw enough to confirm all that has been said of its quaint and picturesque character. On first disembarking, you find yourself at the foot of an almost perpendicular hill, and negro-bearers appear at your side to carry you up the steep ascent, almost impassable for carriages, in a “cadeira,” or curtained chair. This is in itself an odd experience for one to whom it is new, and the rest of the city, with its precipitous streets, its queer houses, its old churches, is as quaint and antique as these original carriages. _July 29th._—To-day we have the “revers de la médaille”; we have returned to our prison, and a violent rain drives us all to take refuge in the hot, close dining-room, our only resort when the weather is bad.