Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). Through the Brazilian Wilderness. 1914.
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| of agriculture, and the latter’s charming wife, and the president of Matto Grosso, and several other ladies and gentlemen, had come down the river to greet us, from the city of Cuyab&á, several hundred miles farther up-stream. As usual, we were treated with whole-hearted and generous hospitality. Some miles below the ranch-house the party met us, on a stern-wheel steamboat and a launch, both decked with many flags. The handsome white ranch-house stood only a few rods back from the river’s brink, in a grassy opening dotted with those noble trees, the royal palms. Other trees, buildings of all kinds, flower-gardens, vegetable-gardens, fields, corrals, and enclosures with high white walls stood near the house. A detachment of soldiers or state police, with a band, were in front of the house, and two flagpoles, one with the Brazilian flag already hoisted. The American flag was run up on the other as I stepped ashore, while the band played the national anthems of the two countries. The house held much comfort; and the comfort was all the more appreciated because even indoors the thermometer stood at 97° F. In the late afternoon heavy rain fell, and cooled the air. We were riding at the time. Around the house the birds were tame: the parrots and parakeets crowded and chattered in the tree tops; jacanas played in the wet ground just back of the garden; ibises and screamers called loudly in the swamps a little distance off. |
| Until we came actually in sight of this great ranch-house we had been passing through a hot, fertile, pleasant wilderness, where the few small palm-roofed houses, each in its little patch of sugar-cane, corn, and mandioc, |