close together and each has a ladder reaching
from the street to the main and only floor. At the bottom of every
ladder appears a rudimentary pavement, probably five square feet in
area and consisting of fifty or sixty whiskey and gin bottles placed
with their necks downwards. Thus in the rainy season when the water
covers the street to a height of seven feet, the ladders always have
a solid foundation. The floors consist of split palm logs laid with
the round side up. Palm leaves form the roofs, and rusty corrugated
sheet-iron, for the most part, the walls. Each house has a sort of
backyard and kitchen, also on stilts and reached by a bridge.

Through the roofs and rafters gambol all sorts of wretched
pests. Underneath the houses roam pigs, goats, and other domestic
animals, which sometimes appear in closer proximity than might be
wished, owing to the spaces between the logs of the floor. That is
in the dry season. In the winter, or the wet season, these animals
are moved into the houses with you, and their places underneath are
occupied by river creatures, alligators, water-snakes, and malignant,
repulsive fish, of which persons outside South America know nothing.

Near the centre of the village is the "sky-scraper," the _Hotel
de Augusto_, which boasts a story and a quarter in height. Farther
along are the _Intendencia_, or Government building, painted blue,
the post-office yellow, the _Recreio Popular_ pink; beyond, the
residence of Mons. Danon, the plutocrat of the village, and farther
"downtown" the church, unpainted. Do not try to picture any of these
places from familiar structures. They are all most unpretentious;
their main point of difference architecturally from the rest of the
village consists in more utterly neglected facades.

The post-office and the meteorological observatory, in one dilapidated
house, presided over by a single self-important official, deserve
description here. The postmaster himself is a pajama-clad gentleman,
whose appearance is calculated to strike terror to the souls of
humble _seringueiros_, or rubber-workers, who apply for letters
only at long intervals. On each of these occasions I would see this
important gentleman, who had the word _coronel_ prefixed to his name,
Joao Silva de Costa Cabral, throw up his hands, in utter despair at
being disturbed, and slowly proceed to his desk from which he would
produce the letters. With great pride this "Pooh-Bah" had a large sign
painted