Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1888-05-17
THEY LOVE AMERICANS
Beautiful Brazilian Senoritas Who
Succumb to Even the Uglitst
OF Their Yankee Visitors.
As Ignorant as They Are Fascinating.
Their Treachery and Temper
Are Beyond Compare.

y
Are Beyond Compare.
BAHIA, Br6xu.-Hcre, while at the
North people are still shivering amid
cold winds and colder lains, summer,
With all that the season signifies in the
tropics, is holding uni:sputed sway.
The luxuriance of the foliage, queer
looking and rank, is something that even
Florida in August cannot equal. The
rainy season Is over, but the streams are
still swollen, and the flood of water is
being utilized in heif-hearted manner
for floating logs of the rarest woods,
worth their weight in-copper-in the
United States from the interior forests
and jungles to the seaport. This country
IS rich in mineral, timber, and grazing
resources, but the great natural advant
ages are almost wholly lacking In practical
utilization, and will remain so until the
deplorable existent state of mental turpi-
tude is some what lightened by intro
duced nineteenth centuryism from the
United States. Bahia is city of III 900
population and to an American, especi-
ally young American, it seems that
about 100000 OF that number are compos-
ed of pretty girls, senoritas of wonder
full physical charms aud an agreeable
lack of mental incisiveness aud asserta-
tive opinionism.
Associative opinionism doesn't seem to
fadge, as it were, with the climatic infia-
euces which surround and enwrap one up-
on landing in Bahia. The very air, add
ed TO the half old-world, half barbaric
civilization, is particularly conducive to
a spirit of do nothingism. Spanish is a
language, the tropics exercise surpris-
ingly lazy influence, and one has every
example and inducement to abandon his
northern spirit of rush and hustle and to
relapse into that state of dolce far niente
so dear to the panishAmerican heart.
The climate is made for love laziness,
and understanding. In spite of the
enervatiug Influences so prevalent, lots OF
business Is transacted in Bahia, mostly
after tie PhiladelD hia plan of conserva-
tive slowness, sureness, and consequent
safety. Big Spanish houses are begin.
ming to employ an army of young Ameri-
cans to transact their business, and these
same young fellows, generally, are enter
pris1ng and of the "get there" class,
Many DO of excellent family and ante
cedents have matrimonial "snaps" open
to them which you'd make the heat of a
real Italian count thrOb wildly in an &C.
stacy of Joy. The senoritas, daughters
of wealthy, influential, often noble. par
ents, are anxious, collectively and indi
vldually, to seize upon these trans planted
sons of freedom, rush them before priest,
and get them for their own property for
ever and aye.
The senoritas are as beautiful as hours
in youth, and can love like house afire.
Their figures are universally models for
brunette Venuses, and their feet arched
like rainbows, and Cindereilan In size.
Their glorious eyes can set any weil-cOn-
stituted mans blood going like res
pjration pump at single glance; and
| their ruby lips are, as many of the boys
can practically prove, equally perfect in
action fer kissing Or cigarette moking.
! They have mOney-many of them lots of
| it-and they stand ready and willing with
all their worldly goods to endOw almost
any young American of whose affections
they can become undisputed mistress.
Red hair ard freckles are not counted as
obstacles in the matrimonial market. In
fact, at first AGO laintance senorita Is an
angel, Venus, and muse ali rolled into
one. But-for there is a but, aud a by dra-
headed one-the diverse of this pleas
ing picture comes under observation af-
| Ter a longer acquaintance. Senorita,
first of all, is ignorant-as ignorant as
sin. She is passionate, and passion IN
the tropics means jealousy which is in
sanity when thoroughly aroused. She is
unscrupulously barbaric, and has tenn
per com pared to which, when once arous-
ed, cyclone is gentle zephyr.
Besides these few minor points which
must be counted against Senorita, there
is another, most illusion-d peliing fact,
which cannot be overlooked. Senorita' s
beauty is as f9eting az fog, as evanescent
as sunbeam, thing of the present So
ciety, Which has no place in the future
which stretches beyond the age of thirty
years. At Is she Is picture; at 20 a
dream Of oriental loneliness, a hasheesh
ms piration to stir mems souls to any
deed; at % she is slightly passe; at 80
she is a bag, obese, yellow, sharp voiced
possibly addicted to drink, and certainly
addicte to the pipe and cigarette.
She lacks all the mental beauties
which adoIn perfect nature and make the
summer of married life more enjoyable
than tha fitful spring, and her physical
perfection is gone forever. For those
who live but in the present the South
American matrimonial market is rich in
bargains, however, and any young man
of passable looks, education, and IL an
ners can pull prize from the lottery,
which, if it furnishes soon, is, neverthe-
less, very brightly gilt and thing of
beauty while it's loneliness laste.