The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-06-06
A Night and Morning in Brazil.


day at Santo Antonio, a little town
about thirty miles distant, across one
of the ridges, on another river where
he had line of steamers plying, and
he asked us to ride there with him; SO
we went back to his house and dined,
and spent the evening at his window
inhaling the soft, wer.perfumed air,
and gazing at the stars twinkling in
their crystal dome of the deepest blue,
and their travesties in a galaxy of fire.
flies glittering and dancing over the
flowers in the garden beneath us. 1t
was late when we tossed ourselves
down to take short sleep, for two
o'clock was the hour fixed to be in the
saddle in the morning. We rode out
of the town in the starlight-Mr. Will
son, Capt. Maclear and myself, with a
native guide on fast mule. We were
now obliged to trust entirely to the in
stinct OF our horses; for if path were
visible in the daylight, there was GER
tainly none in the dark, and we
scrambled for a couple of hours right
up the side of the ridge. When we
reached the top, we came out upon flat
open ground with little cultivation,
bounded in front of us by the dark
line of dense forest. The night was
almost absolutely silent; only now
and then a peculiar shrill cry of
some night-bird reached us from
the woods. AS we got into the
skirts of the forest, the morning
broke; but the reueil in Brazilian
forest is wonderfully different from the
slow creeping on of the dawn of sum-
mer morning at home, to the music of
the thrushes answering one another's
full rich notes from neighboring thorn
trees. Suddenly yellowish light
spreads upward in the cast, the stars
quickly fade, and the dark fringcs of
the forest and the tall palms show out
black against the yellow sky, and al
most before one has time to observe
the change, the sun has risen, straight
and fierce, and the whole landscape is
bathed in the full light of the day. But
the morning is yet for another hour
cool and fresh, and the scene is indc-
scribably beautiful. The woods, SO alb
solutely silent and still before, break ut
once into noise and movement. FlOcks
of toucans flutter and scream on the
tops of the highest forest trees, hope
lessly out Of shot; the ear is pierced by
the strange, wild screechcs of little
band of macaws which fly past YOU like
the rapped-up ghosts of the birds on
some gaudy old brocade. There is no
warbling, no song, only harsh noises,
which those who haunt the forest soon
learn to translate by two or three
familiar words in Portuguese OF
English. Now and then 4 set OF
cries more varied and dissOnant than
usual tell us that a troop of mon.
keys are passing across from tree to
tree among the higher branches; and
lower sounds, to Which ones attention
is called by the guide, indicate to his
practiced ear the neighborhood of a
sloth or some other of the few mann
mails which inhabit the forests of Bra.
iii. And the insects are now I'LL awake,
and add their various notes to swell the
general din. A butterfly of the gor-
geOus genus MOrph0 comes iluttering
along the path like loosely-foltled
sheet of intensely blue tinscl, flashing
brilliant reflections in the sun; great
dark blue shining bees fly past with a
loud hum; tree-bugs of a splendid me.
tallic luster and in the most cxtraordi.
nary harlequin coloring of scarlet and
blue and yellow, cluster around a
branch SO thickly as to weigh it down
and make their presence perceptible
yards of by their peculiar and some
times not unpleasant odor. But how
weak it is to say that that exquisite lit
tie being whirring and Tutoring in the
air over that branch of Bigmonia bells,
and sucking the nectar from them with
its long curved bill, has q head of ruby
and throat of emerald and wings OF
sapphire-as if any triumph of the jew
eler's art could ever vie in brilliancy
with that sparkling epitome of life!L
From " Voyage of the Challenger