I beg to acknowledge with sincere appreciation your kindly and most flattering expressions regarding myself. I receive with joy the expression of sentiments regarding my country, which I hope may be shared by every citizen of the great republic of Brazil. It is with much sentiment that I find myself at the gateway of the south, through which the civilization of Europe entered from the Iberian Peninsula the vast regions of South America. I, whose fathers came through the northern gateway, on Massachusetts Bay, thousands of miles away,--where the winters bring ice and snow and where a rugged soil greeted the first adventurers,--find here another people working out for themselves the same problems of self-government, seeking the same goal of individual liberty, of peace, of prosperity, that we have been seeking in the far north for so many years. We are alike in that we have no concern in the primary objects of European diplomacy; we are free from the traditions, from the controversies, which the close neighborhood of centuries on the continent of Europe has created--free, thank Heaven, from necessity for the maintenance of great armies and great navies to guard our frontiers, leaving us to give our minds to the problem of building up governments by the people which shall give prosperity and peace and individual opportunity to every citizen. In this great work, it is my firm belief that we can greatly assist each other, if it be only by sympathy and friendship, by intercourse, exchange of opinions and experience, each giving to the other the benefits of its success, and helping the other to find out the causes of its failures. We can aid each other by the peaceful exchanges of trade. Our trade--yes, our trade is valuable, and may it increase; may it increase to the wealth and prosperity of both nations. But there is something more than trade; there is the aspiration to make life worth living, that uplifts humanity. To accomplish success in this is the goal we seek to attain. There is the happiness of life; and what is trade if it does not bring happiness to life? In this the dissimilarity of our peoples may enable us to aid each other. We of the north are somewhat more sturdy in our efforts, and there are those who claim we work too hard. We are too strenuous in our lives. I wish that my people could gather some of the charm and grace of living in Bahia. We may give to you some added strength and strenuousness; you may give to us some of the beauty of life. I wish I could make you feel--I wish still more that I could make my countrymen feel--what delight I experience in visiting your city, and in observing the combination of the bright, cheerful colors which adorn your homes and daily life, with the beautiful tones that time has given to the century-old walls and battlements that look down upon your noble bay. The combination has seemed to me, as I have looked upon it today, to be most remarkable; and