The Brazilian plateau is very different. As a rule the days are hotter and the nights cooler, the air drier, than on the coast at the same latitude. With mean temperature 68° there is occasional frost. Brazilian Guiana is hot and arid, though with more rain at the east and west than in the centre. South of the Amazon from Piauhy to southern Bahia is another semi-arid section with a rainless season from June to December, when streams are dry and fields are burned bare. With heavy rains from January to May, the country is covered with verdure; when these fail, sometimes for successive years, the droughts are destructive to agriculture and cattle. The plateaus of Minas, São Paulo, and Rio have a climate which is modified by luxuriant vegetation, south winds, and their altitude; though Minas Geraes, having forests only along the rivers and at the south, is hotter by day, but with always cool nights. The open lands of São Paulo also have higher daily temperature; the annual mean is 68°-77°. In south Minas and São Paulo frosts occasionally occur. In the State of Rio there is a delightful climate in the high valleys of the Serra do Mar, temperature 45°-90°. The table-lands farther south, Paraná, Santa Catharina, and Rio Grande do Sul enjoy a temperate climate with abundant rain, occasional frost, but no snow. The northern valleys of the Paraná River are sub-tropical, the mean annual temperature of Goyaz City being 77°. The country over a large extent may be considered healthful; the yellow fever which once afflicted Rio and some other cities has been exterminated by rigid sanitary measures, and the conditions of life on the eastern plateau and in the temperate south are agreeable. The Amazon Valley is of course malarial, though some sections are far better than others. It would seem that the lower parts which are subject to inundation can hardly be made suitable for residence whatever precautions are taken; but the higher lands may be to some extent free of malarial poison, and certain parts have a climate which some Europeans, even Englishmen enjoy. CHAPTER XLVII BRAZIL: THE CAPITAL, INDIVIDUAL STATES, CITIES THE CAPITAL