The image of St. Anthony in Rio de Janeiro, however, outranks his counterpart of Bahia, and seems to have had a more brilliant military record. His commission as captain dates from a royal letter of March 21st, 1711. He was promoted to be major of infantry in July, 1810, and to be lieutenant-colonel in 1814. He was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of Christ also, in 1814, and his pay as lieutenant-colonel was made a permanent charge on the military list in 1833. The image of St. Anthony of Ouro Preto attained the rank and pay of captain in 1799. His career has been an uneventful one, and has been confined principally to the not unpleasant task of drawing $480 a month from the public treasury. The salaries of all these soldiery images are drawn by duly constituted attorneys. [Footnote: Rio News] Owing to bubonic plague, my stay in Corumbá was prolonged. I have been in the city of Bahia when an average of 200 died every day from this terrible disease, so Brazil is beginning to be more careful. Though steamers were not running, perspiration was. Oh, the heat! In my excursions in and around the town I found that even the mule I had hired, acclimatized as it was to heat and thirst and hunger, began to show signs of fatigue. Can man or beast be expected to work when the temperature stands at 130 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade? As the natives find bullocks bear the heat better than mules, I procured one of these saddle animals, but it could only travel at a snail's pace. I was indeed thankful to quit the oven of a town when at last quarantine was raised and a Brazilian steamboat called. Rats were so exceedingly numerous on this packet that they would scamper over our bodies at night. So bold were they that we were compelled to take a cudgel into our berths! A Brazilian passenger declared one morning that he had counted three hundred rats on the cabin floor at one time! I have already referred to Brazilian numbering; perhaps he meant three hundred feet, or seventy-five rats. With the heat and the rats, supplemented by millions of mosquitos, my Corumbá journey was not exactly a picnic.