No seeker after _dolce far niente_ should come here. No thought of tropic paradises should obscure the vision of the newcomer. Brazil is a good country for the worker, with wide southern lands where careful cultivation will bring excellent results; it is a really free country of tolerant views as well as of wide spaces. The foreigner who comes here to work, to develop, will feel himself remarkably soon at home in a friendly atmosphere, and if he cares to identify himself with progressive movements he will be warmly welcomed; a very long list could be made up of high-class foreigners who have attained not only to wealth but to positions which proved the open mind and confidence of the Brazilian authorities. Naturalized foreigners are eligible to the legislative assemblies of Brazil, and whether naturalized or not foreigners enjoy precisely the same rights and privileges as Brazilians before the law. [Illustration: The Barra Road, Upper City, Bahia. Resaca along the Avenida Beira Mar, Rio; Morro da Gloria in background. On the Upper Amazon. ] For the mining engineer, the stock-raiser, the expert agriculturist, the fruit-grower, there is plenty of room in Brazil; along certain special lines his work is much wanted, and he can look forward to getting a better return for his investment of personality and cash than in most places in a world that has not many great untouched spaces left. The pioneer, hardy and determined, has still a chance in Brazil. CHAPTER III SOCIAL CONDITIONS One afternoon I sat in a street-car of the Copacabana line running to and from the heart of Rio de Janeiro city. As we approached the Avenida and paused at a sharp turn at the regulator’s signal, a small boy poorly clad in cotton clothes got on to the front platform with a dinner pail in his hand. He set it down, removed his cap, and bent his knee as the motorman, with a swift smile at the child, extended his right hand. The boy respectfully kissed it, replaced his cap, and jumped down. The little incident was typical of the wide spread of gentle manners in Brazil; it is here usual enough to see elderly bankers kiss the hands of their parents, but courtesy is not confined to cultured classes. One may in Brazil depend upon a street cleaner as much as upon a senator for chivalrous politeness. A stranger may address any passer-by in a Brazilian street in the most execrable Portuguese and will almost invariably receive serious and kindly attention: it is said that the Brazilian with his agreeably poised attitude to life “laughs at everything except a stranger who is speaking bad Portuguese.”