[Picture: My Brazilian Adventure] Alice and I were seated at the breakfast-table in our rambling old house on the outskirts of the French quarter in New Orleans. She was glancing over the _Picayune_, while I was wrapped in deep thought concerning the most vivid and remarkable dream I had ever had,—the strangest part being that it was about a place I had never seen or even heard of. My sister, who had never married, was ten years my junior, and after my wife’s death, Alice had accepted my invitation to take charge of my household. We lived a retired life, with no one else in the big house but a maid-servant and old black Bilbo, a trusted domestic, who had been a slave in our family during the halcyon days before the war. “Alice,” said I, suddenly, “I have concluded to take Dr. Antoine’s advice, and go off on a sea voyage. You remember the last time he prescribed for me, he said my poor health was simply the result of overwork and too close attention to business, and that a long voyage would benefit me more than anything else.” My sister laid aside her paper, both surprised and pleased. “How glad I am, George, that you at last see the necessity of it. Where shall you go?” “Well, according to my dream of the last two nights, my destination will be latitude 3° 50′ 30″ South, longitude 32° 24′ 30″ West.” Alice stared at me as though she doubted my sanity, while I folded my arms, nodded my head, and tried not to look foolish. I waited a moment, thinking she would speak, and then continued: “Yes, I know you will say that a man forty-three years old ought to know better, especially so prosaic a one as you often say I am. But let me tell you my vision, and then ridicule it if you can. “Night before last I slept unusually well, and was conscious of nothing until I heard a clock somewhere strike four. I dozed off soon after, and had this dream: “I was seated alone in the stern of a little boat, that floated on a calm and gently-heaving moonlit sea; while close on my right hand was a small, densely wooded island, with phosphorescent waves breaking upon its sandy beach. Behind it, and belonging seemingly to another body of land, a lofty peak towered into the air. “The silvery white light fell upon a stately palm that grew near a large rock on the islet, and upon two figures, one of whom, in military uniform, leaned against the trunk, while the other carefully smoothed over the ground at the base of the tree. Then the former glided to the rock and wrote or scratched something upon it, but though I looked and looked, I saw no words, nor could I get even the smallest view of the faces of the two men, although their figures were perfectly plain.