ges
Fan,

 

 

 

III — A Mussurana (Oxyrhopus cloelia) engolindo sua victima
 

 

 

 

 
Si

May ws Domingo
_ Please let me know if tue seisbele thus offerings. on
the family hearth are too much imfluenced by the commercial
scool (dropping my aitches a bit ) of thought, because I don't
want to be so formal and typewritten to the boosum of the fam-

LLy se | | | ?
During the past week I have been JOHN W. SARGENT to a

most interesting group of mosquitoes and though you may say
that the portrait of that elderly female culex is an outrage-
ous carieature and notb at all flattering ---- you must admit
that the one of those two old anophelines eating together is -
wonderfully spirited,-- an amazing bit. I have also been
Margeret E, Sanger to those mosquitoes (business of birth
controlé among the larvae ) and have been Katherine (in the Be-
mis sense of the word)too: so that theres little I dont know
about them, Though I may sound bored by so much concentration
as a matter of fact it is a great relief to be at consecutive
well-ordered work again and the hours in the Laboratorio do
Hygiene e Saude Publica are Satisfactory. |

There are sone amusing things to be seen here inthe way
of customs and points of view. Its good technique if you and
your wife belong to the liesure class, to lock her in when you |
go down town in the afternoon, Quite the thing for her to look,
out of. the front window though and her counter move is to make.
anice little cushion that fits the window and there she lolls
all the P.M, shall we say slightly bored in expression, It is .
& town where all the fazienderos or big plantation owners,
come to live from"the coffee" when they have become so absurd-
ly rich that they have to have company to live it down. So they
blow in, or rather out a good deal in perfume, in automoveis
(guess at it), and as their women are following the.,U,S.: movies
as a standard of dress and behaviour the Society is rather dress

suity and the women run to fluff and picture hats: simple --

like an orchid, On the street cars the conductor always blows

a tin whistle as a warning that he soon will ring the bell, and

en route the motorman anxiously looks up and down the cross
streets for possible lean- passengers or probable fat-ones;at al-
most any distance,

The people are odd in one way that I have mentioned before,
‘ae are So subdued and sober, They are the sort of people it is
impossible td take off, because they have no tangible identity
to begin with and they'd take it with seriousness and fortitude

or with that wonderful explanation they give for many North An-
erican incomprehensible acts "the North Americans are a practi-
cal people --there is a reason for that somewhere", But I not-
ice that Hackett and Smillie are both much quieter than the

men at home and they seem to have caught the Bparitisaé Spirit,

The negro blood has failed to cheer up the people in any percept-
ible way, though its the same negro in most other ways, In fact
Smillie tells me that up in the intertior you can hear them tell-
ing most of the Uncle Remus stortes -- handed down from the ori-
ginal African source,. Darling believes that they must have killed
of a very large number of the active spirited stock among the
Portuguese during the Inquisition , and to that lethal selection
you can undoubtedlya add the cumulative effect of the rule of
celibacy for hundreds of years in the recruited priesthood, and
the factthat of the adventurers who survived their adventures and
settled here in the early days usually diluted their abilities
in the colored blood around them, The effect may not cbhme from
these causes byt it is just what the causes would give, I can
assure Yow.’ 7

I am getting very fond of the Brazilian oxen the more
I see of their touchingly simple attitude toward their work: if
they dont hear the wheels squeaking they stop then there and for
good . So the drivers --whose nib thee are usually ministers wives
and have had practise @ with similar situations in the parish--
put charcoal in the axles, and you should hear country life in |
Brazil! Its assream !

Good luck to you and my love to the missus

oe

Alan.
On

A warm blue-fogged autumn day with the night's cold mist
scarcely rolled back off the mountains arounds uS----- and you write
May on the letter if you are down here for the winter! I havent been
able to feel cold yet and have been here in two or three hot waves
put these people are selling charcoal braziers and the ladies have
begun wearing their furs when they go out walking undid? the bananas
and palm trees. It is very attractively cool here and no mistake

about that. ,
Your letters have been more welcome than you'd suspect

without Ti ta eeenes of Bordeaux and the queer wave of isolation
that comes over you before you can get a foothold in a new place,
Mankind handles the problem of Isolation in various ways, Aneas as I
remember it made it guite objective by believing two of the gods

were mixed up in his leaving home, and when things went badly he re-
ferred to wrathful Juno interms anywhere from petulance to blasphemy
and when things went better he bhanked his stars for what few pro-
tagonbsts he did have in heaven. English colonials settle it by taking
out a great quantity of home with themand never thinking of returning
for good; thus ending by having more lovable living in Kuala Lumpur

or Capefown than they could possibly secure at"home .. Oyr friends

the Christiams who are morally so intent on the dismal business of
self-isolation begin about in the late after-noon to feel how far

away they are from everything and what a cool and uhrelenting world

of toil and struggle they are in , It is in this evensong and veapers
etc, that they reassare themselves that there is some help for mams
lonely lot, his throes of melancholy, his nakedness to the winds of
adversity, and that (excepting in epic circumstances like 1914¢ 1918)
most suffering and dying is done without solace of companionship--

and alone, So they reassure themselves with calling eachothers’ attent-
ion to the “ Rock of Ages Cleft for me" (ME!!!)

or to the toot that Jesis gives "the weary calm and soft repose"

and with the burden of the struggle if not lightened at least re-

arranged they fare homeward---- feeling a bit less isolated.

Still other people handle their isolation by great memory feasts and
recollection parties, ending with "Sust wait till I get back"! ,

"Boy, won't that boat look good to me"! --- and others wellknown,
And still others, like the Supt, at the Good Samaritan Hospital
who says she won't have another dog because she expects to be
too miserable when she loses her first, refuse to feel anything
lest they feel alone sometimes! a
I have had the sihoet tx the past two weeks that the
Past, with alla its certainties and km known pleasures, its mellow
satisfactions, its maudlin securities, acts as the great inertia
and obstruction to the Desire and Impulse of any sort; capable |
of smothering by logic any and every of the stange umessoria ble
sparks of wanting-to-do- something-for-its-own-sake, Of the strength
of the Past -- letters from home, photographs, and My Goa tunes
on the Victor ---- I've had proof adequate of late, but rc heer
have had such a magnificent knowledge of freedom as breaking with
it gives, nor have I been ever felt as the danger of perpetual se-
curity as frsh as now comes the delicate security of perpetual dan-
ger and isolation, You are one of the few people I know who I know
can understand what I mean---- and you know as well as I do that
sometimes the Past gets a merciless inning, that the worst of being
sick is the vague homesickness that goes with it, and how disgrace
fully grateful you feel to the people who protect you for a second
and then plant you on your feet again Jiueput the other you like
as mhch as I: looking over this Brazilian to the palms, cedars,
and bananas trees, the bright red earth, the pink and yellow
stucco houses, the distant fazendas, and the blue mountains at the
rim of the sky---- thats all new, beautiful, and it is reality,
for I'm out in those hills in a week treating 400 Portuguese @ gay
ae trying to get casts of how to live into them at the same time,
Which is a great deal better than tekk looking out and .thinking of
"what used to be " ete etc, I am grateful to have you to write to
for nobody else I know could possibly conclude that (1) I am not
lying away homesickness, or (2) that I am noy on the verge of bec
oming a Brazilian---- they would inevitably believe one or the other,
I wish you were knocking around with me here, rédvime with
pleasure, as I do (much to the stirprise and delight of the sombre
natives) at all the things: I see, things that amuse all grades

from Rabelais to Charles Lamb, ‘Twould be such a delight --- for
33

I know you'd think of them much about tne Same as I and. they are
certainly like nothing on earth, Yesterday I heard a pleasant
flutey sert sylvan sort of music in front of me on the street.

A rough thin slouching sort man approached with a large glass

case with cakes in it balanced beautifully on his head, and in his
hand he held ‘to his mouth an absolute replica of the pipes of Pan—
reeds bound together | eh which Hameee solemnly rather wistfully
_blowing---his cakes for sale---- ag he walked down between the

open Windows of his clientele on the Rua Brigadiero Thomazo Tobias.

EN

# Hydrick-- one of the Commissao Rockfellar men down he
here says that about 8 years ago an American Gunboat, having

occasion to go up the Amazon a way, sighted a Brazilian flag fly
ing over a fort . fhe Commander was feeling tactful and oredcred
a four gun salute to the Brazilian flag--- which was duly carried

out, A single gun from the fort acknowledged the salute----- and
a launch put out from the fort with a huge white flag flying and
_the €.0. of the fort in beautiful uniform, to say that he would

have held out to the end but that he ran out of powder]

 

Ther's a wave of anti- Americanism béing fostered by t
the I talians and the anti-governmeny crowd here now, and its
great sport to watch our opportunities to extend or retract our
work as the opportunities occur, Wilson's lies Mexican policy and
his attitude to our foreign possessions, in the opinion of the
men who have been here 40 years, is the only reason that it is
possible for Americans to live openly or honestly here at allg
There were some very mercenary and Shady deals about to be
backed up by the U.S. government had not W, been elected.

Kermit was much involved! Hal!HA!
Good luck and tell me what goes on, when thi

Splrit moves you

 
 

 

 

Oct
AA ete

 

 
 

 

 

 

34
Does it inwardly irritate you to have it type-
written? I won't ageiri if it does but it 4e so convenient to
have all the letters describing things down here done this way
‘to keep the copies of for the ffiture ond the rest of the family
wee vell I have yet to hear from then as @ matter of fact on this
and other subjects,

Toenight, May 19th, makes the end of my first
month in Brazil, but I wont burden you with the soggy sort: of
review of deeds that falls due upon anniversaries, but pass on
to all the things that are making this long chance I took more
and more successful as time goes by, of course the 19th of May
is most famous to me as the great national holiday of that
gon auong nations, the TROBANS, btu but the surfeit of hol-
idays anong the Brazilians has begun to eclipse the rare days

 

given over to rejoicing among the eine nller peoples,

I have been here in Sao Paulo fo: about three
weeks picking up some of the medicine and lab, work that is
going to be useful to me at work here, In having the comreade~
ship and direction of Jack Smillie, a C,c, graduate who was
in II Academy Greek with me and is assistant in the Gert.
School of Hygeine here and in the Rockefeller Foundation as
well, I am certainly fortunate, And it is just as comfortable
to have as chief boss Lewis Hackett, who preceded me up abot

“the Richards Camp, This week I shall go out to Atybaia or to.
/

Parana’ to a post up in the coffee to get ion in to the

real field work, And thence to Rezende again with Smillie for
a longer Stay and probably some real first hand work, August
(the dead of winter) will see me in ay own field possibly in
Santa Catherina or Marinhao where it is assumed I shall be the
bess and run things to suit myself and write my own reports
and have the management of three or four: posts and all the mi-
eroscopis we and guardas( nen nurses d ‘that 1% takes te run them,
"But as things seldom are the same as you expect

and as prophecy is not anybody 's forte ‘these oar to eer:

 

my letters to what I! ve econ will -sathery you best,

 
 

 

 

myself wondering where you are and what goes on? So auch | 80 that.
ah” £9) ree i

T

coming about the time. this gets to the U oo

 

an going to send this home to the Flat and relye on er home

Xeoteraay au rT was coming hone he. lunch. a ragged slouch-
ing sort of mon approached me and he was “making a pleasant syle
van sort of music somehow, with sonething, at his mouth, Balanced
beautifully on his head a large glass case of cakes, and in his
hand, eure. enough Pan’ s Pipes--reeds bound together with & ‘thong
on which ae he was solemnly rather wietrully Dlowing----his cakes

for Bale---9a8 he walked dow Ddetween the open windows of his”
_ elientele S10N6. the Rua, Brigadiero Tobias, rs a reat, place here
to ‘find new and consequentiy very oa oustoms, —
iihen you pass. the cemetery here avery hat in the. street
car. is lifted, And a block further. on af the. girl in front of you
. gets off she says goodbye with her hand pala up wiggling G11 the
fingers, to the friend she is leaving, eti2l on the oar, All the

 

*

carrying is done on the ‘head. ---up to pianos, where it is recog-

 

nised that four heade ane better than one, Of course all the =
stores are open to the street, ond. the same holds true for the |

many laundries, apparently the girls who iron there in their bare

 

 

calves and white dresses. fina that looking at all. whe passersby Re
makes their work drag less boringly,. The butcher shops ane to sell — Te
each day's meat before noon or it is taken aay from them, And if =
you like fresh ailk,, as ‘the cow might gay. to the esaf " “you know

what you can do” mo for the milking can ve aene out on the street

in front of your house»

uty

fhere is no libel Law her at all and ‘the art of seur-
réllous Writing flouriahes to an astonishing degree, with plenty

 

o"(which means: the’ £01

 

of sheets like "Perfusc “ew) to ruin peoples’
names, But of course the writing is amusing and it must be a ‘relief
when you have a ghod mad on to be able to publish all of ith *

: During the past week I was the speaker at a Current
Events class where with e Coldstrean Guardsman I told thon about
this war --.“that® they are so blissfully ignorant of down here, a
I didnt let then a4 with the journalict's ideas about the war

nd told then net boasted 80 much about

 

Bose,

     
 

as ee ae i aes
aa hi s oe ges na
s : ‘ ae ee ee,

 

 

is ~--and then t

a Anericans who up aa.

as they had been told about in ,
read and sot our ideas from in the U aBe

boxes and trays,

 

how you find these.

  

the ‘perfection | of all ay aid ana of how they had won the Yar

and of how well “the mail was being delivered to the boys etce

 

and of how the Amerdecn soldiers were the teat fed of all etc.

  

Bes ‘no incline @ to criticise, but that as it.

   
 

then I should not fee
4 id them. som of the things I have seon among -
the Americans and ¥ tota shen Mk bs tb interes: ing thing, to me
about those facts was that I couldnt get anyone at home to believe

then, and they wouldnt either, The YoM.C.A, critictens were brought

up or course and I ‘told then everything can happen in war and that

I think that the current feeling "the ‘troops was due more to

 

Xs inefficiency ‘than to sectarian ‘resentment (a reason suggesed by
@& woman. whose noting js in the Xt de © also think that some of

 

  

he end anant imow that there was @ WAR on

 

and were acting a bit peevish because things didnt go as smoothly —

those daanea newspapers we all

 

Well to tell the truth I found hone coming a very atneneee

ing business because I dont, think the spond who stayed at home

will ever reaiise what

enough folie

- them oe I didnt see

 

 

were worth | all the o dying that £ t saw beting done

 

for then, Too many. curs,

There. are perf: etly lovely woods here in Brazil, Such —
colors and arrangements of grain as you could nog dream of, and.

By i
ee

Ae"

ve wosdsorkers a marvel or

  

in the hands of some of these ‘al

their own possibilities, I shall nadt eave without some of their |

Do be a good Lady ané
United 4 retu 111
Faiths family more amusing and delightful ti than ever, She ie the

 
    

only one who moking much application of the sterling principles
of large families which we iearned at 731 North Cascade, And

aS @ partial result the ern all
the time, I liked 1t better thai

 

Good luck and cheerto--- wish 4 Soup: have waited

till you came back before |

   

 
 

i

Kok Ma,
cop Wi
£1. Oe Raho | .
SS ee

rg
an

ae I
ne

ne
zt

%

fo a

/

pI

\I/

Khe K
a

ey

 

Po AG he
LPP YS

i

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Din
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Pw

td

‘ fi
ee gi | |. eis

 

 
Ayes ot
gree es

56

Hearing, that the Uberaba is leaving Santos on the 28th
I am going to chance a letéer filled with the urgent trivial re-
quests that seem to develope so acutely when you are miles from
any sort of stores or agencies for the wellbeing of man,
Sometime when you are in town can you order a pair of

 

low shoes from Coes& Young (they have my size and style) and going
next door order at Delanos @ good Leghorn or Bankok hat size 7 3/8
or 7 1/4 large, And can you telephone M, Sullivan in Cambridge on
Mt, Auburn St, near Boylston and tell him to make me two suits of
light white duck and two of light weight kahki drill, with waiste
coats, 1,e, 3 piece suits, He has my measurements, And give to
each the enclosed paper to be put on the package when it is sent
to International Health Board 61 Broadway, New York City, to be
forwarded from there, ‘Charge them to yourself and I will see that

 

® : you get a check for $100, in time to gave your using the back door
as they flow in the front door bills in hand, Clothes can be gotten
in about 2 to4 months time thus and are infinitely to be preferred
to the atzrocious prices and doubtful workmanship here, —
If Sullivan is dead or out of reach they may remember me
at Macullar Parker's where IT got a suit in shantung silk about te
Feb 23 saat, | |
Today as I Was working at the School of Hygeine I heard
a wid yell or two and then the usual sequence of pistol shots and |
more yells and then looked out to see the whole neighborhood on t
the deat run toward the row, which means it Was & civilian affair
because in the case of its being the State Police in a row the
one was killed but like our ow early -days fights are managed that

crowd is always and wisely ce

 

al, I dont know whether any

 

way, On one of the fazendas we did shme work on a well known bad
man got into touble with the omer, At eight o ‘lock in the even-
ing he told his friends that he was going to shoot the owner the
next time he saw him, The fazendhiero knew the man meant what he
said , when he heard the threat two hours later, He knew that the
eunman would enter the fazenda at about 6 the next. morning and he

knew the gate he would be coming by, So at 5 the owner went to the —

     

phy eee eee meas uate ort eile ia WE AS Aagchraes saa TRC edi ier 20 ane hak Om RE aa eg 2 CE alt eh Tk a Ca ane 2 A
Ms tae iy Sr aes Ri PA Pate eh Wiig nT! ioe) ‘hetg 4 Wise tees
 

 

 

 

 

gate with no gun showing and when the murderer came up on his
pony surprised him so that he simply told him that he ‘in
dare murder him and that if he did to try, All the fazendiero
had said the night before when told this fellow was after
him was " I will see him before he works himself up to it", .
My period of instruction is nearly over, It has been
Simply invaluable ,a° you would suppose for I knew nothing
of H* or malaria when I came, I shall be at Regzende doing
regular post work next and will write you. from there, |
I have seen what a tremendous disease hookworm is demonstrae
ted on the small hospital scale here, The seriosly infected
look like pernicious anemia with bloods as low as 20% hemo~ —
globin, and the common rate being 40 toS0, It is interesting |
to be able to predict a mans wages in the coffee by taking
his hemoglobin;s0 closely does the proportion | work out,
And another interesting thing is that in the Malay States
the proportion between ankylostomes and necators was so def-
inite shat for each race,--Chinese, Tamils, Europeans etc,
that farling thinks it may be of some value in unravelling
‘the obscure points in the origtns of the races there, ethnic
| groups widely scattered having the same "anky Los tome index!
He io & mosg stinulating and interesting mani, and has a

 

mental sweep that is quite rare and yet not at all put ‘on,
n
I fthe Gregg family wish to have a bro, that in the

immotile immortal phrase of Mrs, Forbes, "4s out of touch
with things in Milton" they could club together at say July

1ith and give me a subscription to the ‘Sunday Herald;
Your birthday will go by before you get this but
best of luck and frequent thinkings of you,

X sdsaBe

ot a

 

 

 

 

 
3

going on actively

to see how much behaviour tells,how little what 4s said, At

  

| It 4p the third of June ---the dead of winter here , the
time most dre ded by the coffee growres: on account of the chance
beauty of the endlessly blue sky

 

of frost and when you Look at the
and the temperature of South Tamworth in late May ,-- 1t is not a
very threatening sort of winter after all,

Since the ‘265th of May I have been up in kthe interivr--
that 1s about 12 hours in , at two places naned Brodowald and Ati- |
baia, tiny primitive frontier places where we have poste and work

 

AMOTLS, the corres and cotton fazendas, To Brod-
owski the night train from Sao Paulo takes 12 hours, at first on

a perfect rail , later on the wildest sequence of jerks end lurches —
that was ever called a railmoad, pulled by the usual woodburning
engine, These woodburning engines are no joke, the glowing ¢inders

frequently burné your travelling clothes in Large holes, -<- but

at night are quite fine to see,’ a créss between volcano and a.
pinwheel,

I wenb up with Dr, Hydrick and his successor here as etate
director Dr, Mario Pernambuco, Hydrick is & very likable and pol«

ished southerner, a Rhodes scholar, and a a very good men, ~e Mario

fs a wise, even-tempered little fat mm man, with the face a highly

educated baby, and a@ pleasant way of deliberate contemplative ditties:
Brazilians are much nore careful about meeting their friends and
employers at the station than we are, so it was no surprise to see

most of the personel of the post at the train when we arrived, We

walked right up to the post arid surprised the secretary still in his

pajamas at 7 o'clock in the ‘morn,--for wiiich ‘he promply got a cool

comment from Dr Hydrick who ig one of those enviable people who

doesnt lose his own balance when he wants to upset others, We found
that the cuardas ( the men who ride out and give treatment under the
doctors ordets) were on strike and the mornings business rapidly — :
turned to the interviewing of 411 the guardas, and running a South
American strike among about twenty rather frightened but defiant men,
Not knowing enough Poruguese to follow the talk I spent my time try-

ing to decide | whetherthey were lying, or no$, You would be surprised

 

 
 

 

Fis ey’ g ‘
ale as
a

 

and life oP many ways is date? 1835 ‘

ss
3

 

we had fired three men, These wens to the others and started

a little movement to call our hand by ail going . Hydrick's

southern temper was just the thing for this and when he

went out to them with eyes blazing and called out " Que

mais ? que mais? " (who else ? who else To they decided

they wouldnt go after adiand the strike waxed very weak,
The cause, in case Richard's social instincts are arroused
by the apparently high handed treatuent of labor, was the
fact that they were all reprimanded for being late to break
fast vy their chefe, who owed a Little money to the ‘aceeal
leader of the "strike", ”

The town of Brodowsict ie T1A%. and western in the

“eompletoness of the plan and the incompletenese of the sez

settlement, It 1s in highk rolling hille which are covered _
with unending rows of coffee bushes, _ a rich deep green and

a beautiful thing to see, You do not thin of Brazil as
mountains, but. that is almost all I have seen. thusfar an
Hackett sayS that io nearly all there is, The ground is a

very deep red, almost purple, and Looks just Like ‘Bheod on
the horses lege when you come in from @ zone or area of treat
ment. It is @n enormous country and in the interior I was

just at Abraham Lincoln's time--- the early settlers are

pushing on into the wilderness with muszle-loading rifles —

and axes, the shanties are shared by much ee the livestock .

_ On the 29th, starting at 4 AM., on & little single
footing horse »Raoul Dini, the guarda, and I rode out to the

fazenda Ollhos d‘Azua. ost of the way it Was bright Star-

light with a cool morning breeze and. everghhing on the road=

side looming very large and more than ever strange, as in a

* |
POG When we gotto the fasenda madrugsada wae just breaking
over Lovely rolli..g hills whose outline against. the ¢@e red

aky showed the low even planted coffee bushes as far as I

cuuld see, Our ponies wheeled sharply into § eourt-yard of
a large low buildins and two large dogs charged at then — ee

       

 
 

 

 

 

     

<
.
Z° i at” ,
[ > - i _ @ a ae i. we, ws “F
, OitA : Z Ou hh, A < LAa, Fa
. 8
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a * 2 IE
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ma Plantacio de Milho

 

oe

Santos. Serie em cores No. 514

 

+