A few days more saw us in Bahia; and with our arrival on the station began a round of duties and enjoyments which made life at twenty pleasant enough, both in the passage and in retrospect, but which scarcely afford material for narration. Our two chief ports, Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo, were then remote and provincial. They have become more accessible and modern; but at the time of my last visit--already over thirty years ago--they had lost in local color and particular attraction as much as they had gained in convenience and development. Street-cars, double-ended American ferry-boats, electric lights, and all the other things for which these stand, are doubtless good; but they make places seem less strange and so less interesting. But I suppose there must still be in the business streets that pervading odor of rum and sugar which tells that you are in the tropics; still there must be the delicious hot calm of the early morning, before the sea-breeze sets in, the fruit-laden boats plying over the still waters to the ships of war; still that brilliant access of life and animation which comes sparkling in with the sea-breeze, and which can be seen in the offing, approaching, long before it enters the bay. The balance of better and worse will be variously estimated by various minds. The magnificent scenery of Rio remains, and must remain, short of earthquake; the Sugar Loaf, the distant Organ mountains, the near, high, surrounding hills, the numerous bights and diversified bluffs, which impart continuous novelty to the prospect. It is surprising that in these days of travel more do not go just to see that sight, even if they never put foot on shore; though I would not commend the omission. I see, too, in the current newspapers, that Secretary Root has attributed to the women of Uruguay to-day the charm which we youngsters then found in those who are now their grand-mothers. As Mr. Secretary cannot be very far from my own age, we have here the mature confirmation of an impression which otherwise might be attributed to the facility of youth. An interesting, though not very important, reminiscence of things now passed away was the coming and going of numerous vessels, usually small, carrying the commercial flags of the Hanse cities, Bremen, Hamburg, and Lubeck, now superseded on the ocean by that of the German Empire. Scarcely a morning watch which did not see in its earlier hours one or more of these stealing out of port with the tail of the land breeze. These remnants of the "Easterlings," a term which now survives only in "sterling," were mostly small brigs of some two hundred tons, noticeable mainly for their want of sheer; that is, their rails, and presumably their decks, were level, without rise at the extremities such as most vessels show.