General Baden-Powell's arrival, all the Badian boatmen and cab-drivers
struck work, and the vampire-bitten aide-de-camp, who was in the town,
met serried phalanxes of dark faces hurrying to the landing-stage. On
asking a Badian what the excitement was about, the negro answered with
infinite hauteur.

"You ask me dat, sir? You not know dat our great countryman General
_Badian_-Powell arrive to-day, so we all go welcome him."

Charles Kingsley in _At Last_ goes into rhapsodies over the "High
Woods" of Trinidad. I confess that I was terribly disappointed in
them. They are too trim and well-kept; the Forestry department has
done its work too well. There are broad green rides cut through them,
reminiscent of covers in an English park, but certainly not suggestive
of a virgin forest. One almost expects to hear the beaters' sticks
rattling in them, and I did not think that they could compare with the
splendid virgin forests of Brazil.

I was in Brazil just thirty years ago with Patrick Lyon, brother of
the present Lord Strathmore. We were staying at Petropolis, and Lyon,
fired by my accounts of these virgin forests, declared that he must
see one for himself. He had heard that the forests extended to within
three miles of Petropolis, and at once went to hire two horses for us
to ride out there. There were no horses to be had in the place, but so
determined was Lyon to see these untrodden wilds, that he insisted on
our doing the three miles on foot, then and there. It was the height
of the Brazilian summer, and the heat was something appalling. We
struggled over three miles of a glaring white shadeless road, grilled
alive by the sun, but always comforting ourselves by dwelling on the
cool shades awaiting us at the end of our journey. At length we