So the four went ashore and drove about the cheerful city, with its gaily painted houses, passing one public building glazed in yellow and green tiles, another in imitation pink marble trimmed in sky blue. Crossing a long bridge, they saw magnificent gardens with brilliant flowering plants, and the fine fruit-market where they purchased the luscious Pernambuco _abacoxi_ the finest-flavoured pineapple in the world. "It is a very fine city," said Affonzo as they returned to the steamer. "But not as handsome as Para," said Lola. "That's the prettiest city in all Brazil," and her father laughed. When they steamed into Bahia two days later just at twilight, she still insisted that Para was the most beautiful place in the world, but Affonzo was delighted with Bahia. "Capt. Diego Alvarez was one of the early explorers here," said the Senhor, as they sat upon the deck in the moonlight, watching the crescent of lights which rise from the harbour toward heaven, for the main portion of Bahia is built upon a high bluff overlooking the river. "He was captured by the Indians and was about to be killed, when the chief's daughter threw herself in front of him and saved his life. Alvarez fell in love with her and married her, taking her with him to France, where she was honoured and cared for all her life. Some of the best families in Bahia boast that she is their ancestor." "What are sent out from here?" asked Affonzo. "Thousands and thousands of cocoanuts, for one thing," said the Senhor. "It is a fortune for a family to have a cocoa plantation, for the trees produce from fifty to eighty years, and need little attention after the first year or two. They are very easy to raise. After planting, the weeds are kept away from the trees, and during the first year, banana plants are grown between the rows to shade the young trees. The fourth year the first crop is gathered and the trees produce two hundred clusters of fruit with thirty or forty nuts each. People net about sixty thousand dollars a year from a plantation of fifty thousand trees." "It must pay to raise cocoanuts at that rate," said Affonzo. "Does _manaioca_ pay as well?" "Not quite, but it is about as easy to raise. Everyone has to have _manaioca_. The rich use if for puddings and desserts in the form of tapioca, while the poor people use the _fariulia de manaioca_[10] as their chief food. It also makes good starch, for the roots ground up in water deposit their starch as a fine white powder. "A farm of twelve acres belonging to a friend of mine and planted with forty thousand plants produces eighty thousand pounds of tapioca, which at the lowest price brings two thousand four hundred and twenty-five dollars." "The children are growing to be regular little encyclopedias," said the Senhora. "They must go to bed now, or I am afraid their brains will burst with so much knowledge."