A borachuda bite is more rare but more interesting. He looks like a feeble baby fly. He bites your hand in the shadow, on the sly, and the spot indurates besides inflaming, and lasts longer than the other sorts of bite, but is not serious. The barata is like a huge cockroach. He loves leather, shoes, traveling bags, passe-partouts, book-bindings. Starch and glue are also acceptable articles of diet to him. With strict housekeeping he is banished. You see how convenient a tin trunk will be if you really travel in all sorts of places, to protect a few of your valuables, now and then. Now you know the worst there is to know, unless it may be the early puzzles of an American housekeeper here. First as to ice. You can get some if you will, but most people do not. It is considered most unwholesome to drink ice-water. I cannot myself see the superiority of an evaporating water-jar of porous terra cotta, for it has a slender neck and could only be rinsed, never washed and absolutely cleansed, I should think. I admit the chill of the ice-water may be bad in yellow-fever regions. Most people and most shops have no refrigerators. Meat is eaten the day it is killed, and is called _carne verde_, green meat. This is the tempting label on butchers’ carts. I remember going to dine with a lady who was a fine housekeeper. The turkey was as tender as one from Rhode Island or Philadelphia. I asked the secret. She said that before it was killed that morning she had fed it whisky until it staggered. Every house of pretension has its “dispense,” or locked closet, from which the housekeeper every morning counts out or weighs out exactly what is to be used by the cook for the meals of the day. The cook usually goes to market, being able to beat down the prices to the proper point with better grace than the presiding genius of the house. Besides he or she can bring home the purchases in a basket, and there is no further doubt as to whether the article purchased is the one delivered. The great markets are worth a visit. You will go at least to the chief one, in the heart of town, in a great, light market-building which would be a credit anywhere.