center, where they are supported by a suspended lattice-box girder.

The sea wall itself is made of concrete. The lower courses are concrete blocks, upon which is built a wall in block design. The top coping course is of much harder concrete with an especially hard aggregate. Electric cranes, which run alongside, are used to discharge the cargo. It was told by a wireless operator that at one time a ship lying alongside begun to use her wireless, when to the dismay of the operator he found that the impulses had electrocuted the operator of the electric crane. You who are wireless experts can decide the possibility of such an

occurrence.

Ceara, Brazil

On the evening of the third day after leaving the Amazon, we came in sight of Ceara, Brazil. This is a city which, according to the Bible, is destined to fall, for it is founded wholly upon sand. The southeast trade winds have heaped huge rows of it along the unprotected coast, and upon one of these long ridges the town has grown. A single wharf, built with cast iron columns, reaches to a depth of "three arms' lengths," as the boat man said, or about fifteen feet. As a result of this gently sloping sea floor all ships must lie about one-half mile off shore and unload their cargoes upon huge barges brought alongside. Passengers are taken off in quaint sailboats with gracefully curving masts and sails covered with patches which are drenched with water to make them hold the wind better.

Ceara's proud boast is her cotton. She exports about 10,000 tons of long-fiber, first quality cotton that before the war went straight to Germany. She also exports carnauba wax, goat skins, hides, etc. To the ladies on board, the most important export was the dainty lace made by the native women. For a time there was a brisk trading in doilies, handkerchiefs and petticoat flounces. The prices ranged from sixty cents to twelve dollars.

The deep-sea fishermen of Ceara use a peculiar raft-like boat, which is nothing but four or five logs of very light wood fastened together, pointed to form a bow, and fitted with a single large sail set well forward. These craft go miles out to sea in all kinds of weather, and owing to their log construction are absolutely unsinkable. One of the crew crouches at the foot of the mast and the four others stand at the rear around a barrel, into which the fish will be put and upon which the nets are hung. All are standing in the water from morning until night; there

is no place to sit down. Just before sunset, as they come plowing their way through the water homeward bound, nothing of the raft can be seen but the sail projecting above the waves, with the four men apparently wholly detached from it and being dragged through the water about fifteen feet aft.

The cottages where these humble fishermen live line the beach and are backed by a luxuriant growth of cocoanut palms. Game cocks strut around in front of the houses and occasionally a brilliant green, red and blue parrot will screech from the ridge pole of some red-tiled roof. Through the open windows hammocks can be seen, as this convenient form of bed is almost universally used among the poorer classes in tropical South America.

The market is one ever-changing kaleidoscope of life and color. There one sees cocoanut peddlers, venders of native lace, tiny coarse-haired pigs with their feet hobbled, poultry men driving chickens before them with leading strings attached to the legs, burros with fat little kegs of liquor saddled to their backs, and sellers of herbs of all kinds with little wooden mortars and pestles in which the dried berries are to be ground. The natives are clean looking and the meat market is especially well cared for, with its floor of red tile raised well above the street. Strange to say, there are few flies apparent. This is hard to account for unless it is because of the extremely dry climate that Ceara is burdened with, causing the otherwise fertile breeding places to dry up before the larva can mature.

Oftentimes, droughts of long duration cause much suffering and death. The Brazilian Government has undertaken measures of relief by attempting to provide storage reservoirs back in the hills to maintain irrigation. It seems strange that Mother Nature should be so extravagantly lavish with rain in the whole Amazon basin, and then should be so niggardly in doling it out to this sand-thirsty land which, "just around the corner," is so eager and ready to be blessed by every drop that falls.

Pernambuco, Brazil

Our next stop was at Pernambuco, which we reached in a little more than two days from Ceara. It is one of the chief ports of Brazil and is said to have a population of about 250,000 people. Way back in 1510, when it was founded by the Portuguese, it was christened "Recife" (Reef) on account of the natural breakwater of rock that lies well off-shore and runs

almost parallel to the coast, enclosing behind it a safe harbor. Like most of the state capitals of Northern Brazil, Pernambuco is known the world over by the name of its state instead of its birthday name. As the Indian words "Pera Nambuco" mean "perforated rock," referring to gaps in the reef in front of the city, its present name is easily explained and seems to be highly appropriate.

In the last ten years great street and harbor improvements have been inaugurated and are rapidly nearing completion. It now has a solid wall built upon the reef high enough to raise it above the most violent storm waves, thus completely protecting the harbor. Commodious warehouses with modern unloading cranes line the well-built shore wall, to which the smaller ships may tie up. Larger ships, however, still unload into lighters in the harbor, as there is not more than a depth of nineteen feet alongside the dock at low tide. The streets are paved with hard, flint-like blocks, with the joints cemented. A graceful reinforced concrete bridge and three steel bridges span the two tidal rivers which flow through the city.

More than four hundred years ago, the town was captured and held by the Dutch for a few years, and the few buildings covered with shiny delft blue tile are pointed to as the remains of that Dutch influence (quien sabe?). The cannon used in those early days to protect the city are now protecting the shipping, for they have been sunk upright into the reef sea-wall to act as mooring posts.

The modern city is straightening and widening its crooked streets whenever it can, but most of them are still as wavy and almost as narrow as the original paths from which they had their beginnings. Some few are so narrow that the wheels of a cart touch both curbs at once.

A garden in one's back yard where one raises fish instead of vegetables is what many of the Pernambuco boys are used to. There are no long weary potato bug rows to go over nor any weeds to pull in the hot sun, — nothing to do but to go out entirely naked (as is their custom) and wade around in liquid mud, catching the altogether frantic fish that find themselves stranded. You see, the land where these little brown boys and their families live is flooded every day by the incoming tide. Their tiny thatched huts are built on home-made islands with a narrow dike path to the road. The "back yard" is surrounded by an earth wall with a wicket gate that swings inward with