Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/310

278 an aqueduct to his house and fountains everywhere. There is an especially beautiful fountain on the highest point of Juiz de Fóra, in the centre of his grounds, and from there is a splendid view. There is a white cottage in his gardens for his aged mother. He has also an orangery of huge extent, different species of oranges growing luxuriantly, and we reclined on the grass for an hour picking and eating them. All the land around was his; he built the chapel; even our châlet was his property; and besides he has a model farm. Altogether Juiz de Fóra appeared a thriving town, and the Commendador was the pivot on which it all moved. It seemed so strange to find in the interior of Brazil a place like that of an English gentleman. One cannot give this generous and enterprising planter enough praise. If there were more like him, Brazil would soon be properly exploited. Some object that the arrangement of his place is too fantastic. There is no doubt it is fantastic, but it is so because he is giving the natives a model of everything on a tiny scale, and collecting in addition his native tropical luxuriance around him, as an English gentleman would delight to collect things on his estate, if he could get the same vegetation to grow in England.

On leaving Juiz de Fóra, I was obliged to leave my baggage behind, which appeared to me rather unreasonable, as it only consisted of the usual little canisters, a pair of long, narrow boxes for the mule's back. If the ladies who travel with big baskets the size of a small cottage had seen my tiny bundle and