Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/280

248 help to him in every way, for he by no means shared her popularity."

At Rio Isabel gave her first dinner-party—the first since her marriage; and here she got a touch of fever, which lasted for some time.

When she was sufficiently recovered, the Burtons left Rio for Santos (their consulate, one hundred and twenty miles to the south). They went down on board H.M.S. Triton, and on arrival were saluted by the usual number of guns. The Consular Corps were in attendance, and the Brazilian local magnates came to visit them. Thus began Isabel's first experience of official life.

Santos was only a mangrove swamp, and in many respects as unhealthy as Fernando Po. Burton had come down and inspected the place before the arrival of his wife at Rio; and he had arranged, as there were two places equally requiring the presence of a consul—São Paulo on the top of the Serra, and Santos low down on the coast—that Isabel should live for the most part at São Paulo, which was comparatively healthy, and that they should ride up and down between Santos and São Paulo as need required. For an Englishwoman to have lived always at Santos would have been fatal to her health. The railway between Santos and São Paulo was then in process of being made. As they had determined not to sleep at Santos, the Burtons went the same day on trolleys along the new line as far as Mugis, where they stayed the night. The next day, by dint of mules, walking, riding, and occasional trolleys, they got to the top of the Serra, a very precipitous climb. At the top