_January 30th._—On board the “Ibicuhy.” Yesterday we parted from our kind hosts, and bade good by to Monte Alégre. I shall long retain a picture, half pleasant, half sad, of its shady, picturesque walks and dells; of its wide green square, with the unfinished cathedral in the centre, where trees and vines mantle the open doors and windows, and grass grows thick over the unfrequented aisles; of its neglected cemetery, and the magnificent view it commands over an endless labyrinth of lakes on one side, beyond which glitter the yellow waters of the Amazons, while, on the other, the level campos is bordered by the picturesque heights of the distant Serra. I have never been able to explain quite to my own satisfaction the somewhat melancholy impression which this region, lovely as it unquestionably is, made upon me when I first saw it,—an impression not wholly destroyed by a longer residence. Perhaps it is the general aspect of incompleteness and decay, the absence of energy and enterprise, making the lavish gifts of Nature of no avail. In the midst of a country which should be overflowing with agricultural products, neither milk, nor butter, nor cheese, nor vegetables, nor fruit, are to be had. You constantly hear people complaining of the difficulty of procuring even the commonest articles of domestic consumption, when, in fact, they ought to be produced by every land-owner. The agricultural districts in Brazil are rich and fertile, but there is no agricultural population. The nomad Indian, floating about in his canoe, the only home to which he has a genuine attachment, never striking root in the soil, has no genius for cultivating the ground. As an illustration of the Indian character, it may not be amiss to record an incident which occurred yesterday when we were leaving Monte Alégre. On his journey to Ereré, Major Coutinho had been requested by an Indian and his wife, whose acquaintance he had made in former excursions there, to take one of their boys, a child about eight years of age, with him to Rio. This is very common among the Indians; they are not unwilling to give up their children, if they can secure a maintenance for them, and perhaps some advantages of education besides. On the day of departure, the mother and father and two sisters accompanied the child to the steamer, but I think, as the sequel showed, rather for the sake of seeing the ship, and having a day of amusement, than from any sentiment about parting with the child. When the moment of separation came, the mother, with an air of perfect indifference, gave the little boy her hand to kiss. The father seemed to be going off without remembering his son at all; but the little fellow ran after him, took his hand and kissed it, and then stood crying and broken-hearted on the deck, while the whole family put off in the canoe, talking and laughing gayly, without showing him the least sympathy. Such traits are said to be very characteristic of the Indians. They are cold in their