Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/282

250 mother; and from them I have been permitted to make the following extracts:

", December 15, 1865.

"I do hate Santos. The climate is beastly, the people fluffy. The stinks, the vermin, the food, the niggers are all of a piece. There are no walks; and if you go one way, you sink knee-deep in mangrove swamps; another you are covered with sand-flies; and a third is crawling up a steep mountain by a mule-path to get a glimpse of the sea beyond the lagoons which surround Santos. I stayed there a fortnight and some days, and I got quite ill and peevish. At last Richard was to go to Ignipe, and I to São Paulo again. I started on Tuesday, the 12th, at one in the day; and as it was so fine I sent all my cloaks and warm wraps away, and started in a boat, as for two hours from Santos the roads had overflowed. Then I took the diligence, which is an open van with seven mules, and got the box-seat to enjoy the country. It rained in buckets, and thundered and lightened all the way. We dined in a roadside hut on black beans and garlic, I and strange travelling companions, and arrived in eleven and a half hours. I had only a cotton gown on and no shawl, and Kier (my maid) said I came to the door like a shivering charity-girl, with the rain streaming off the brim of my hat. Kier gave me some tea with brandy, groomed me down with brandy and water, and put me between blankets. They think me a wonderful person here for being so independent, as all the ladies are namby-pamby. To go up and down by myself between Santos and São