occupied themselves with fishing and hunting till midday, when we returned to the house to breakfast. The result of the chase was a monkey, two caititú (wild pigs), and a great variety of birds, all of which went to swell the scientific collections.[39] We returned to dine at the lower fazenda, and all retired soon after, for the next day the great hunt of the week would take place, and we were to be early astir. At dawn the horses were at the door, and we were mounting the Serra before sunrise. We were bound to a fazenda on the Serra da Babylonia, some two leagues from the one at which we were staying, and on higher ground, too high indeed for the culture of coffee, and devoted to pasture land. It is here that Senhor Lage has his horses and cattle. The ride along the zigzag road winding up the Serra was delightful in the early morning. The clouds were flushed with the dawn; the distant hills and the forest, spreading endlessly beneath us, glowed in the sunrise. The latter part of the road lay mostly through the woods, and brought us out, after some two hours’ ride, on the brow of a hill overlooking a small lake, sunk in a cuplike depression of the mountain, just beyond which was the fazenda. The scenic effect was very pretty, for the border of the lake was ornamented with flags, and on its waters floated a little miniature steamer with the American flag at one end and the Brazilian at the other. Our host invited us to ride in at the gate of the fazenda, in advance of the rest of our cavalcade, a request which we understood when, as we passed the entrance, the little steamer put into shore, and, firing a salute in our honor, showed its name, AGASSIZ, in full. It was a pleasant surprise very successfully managed. After the little excitement of this incident was over, we went to the house to tie up our riding-habits and prepare for the woods. We then embarked in the newly-christened boat and crossed the lake to a forest on the other side. Here were rustic tables and seats arranged under a tent where we were to breakfast; but while the meal was making ready and a fire building for the boiling of coffee, the stewing of chicken, rice, and other creature comforts, we wandered at will in the wood. This was the most beautiful, because the wildest and most primitive, specimen of tropical forest we have yet seen. I think no description prepares one for the difference between this forest and our own, even though the latter be the “forest primeval.” It is not merely the difference of the vegetation, but the impenetrability of the mass here that makes the density, darkness, and solemnity of the woods so impressive. It seems as if the mode of growth—many of the trees shooting up to an immense height, but branching only toward the top—were meant to give room to the legion of parasites, sipos, lianas, and climbing plants of all kinds which fill the intervening spaces. There is one fact which makes the