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 over the door.  The post-office over which he presides is by no means overworked, as only one steamer arrives every five weeks, or so, but still he has the appearance of being “driven.”  But when he fusses around his “Observatorio meteorologico,” which consists of a maximum and minimum thermometer and a pluviometer, in a tightly closed box, raised above the ground on a tall pole, then indeed, his air would impress even the most blase town-sport.  I was in the village when this observatory was installed, and after it had been running about a week, the mighty official called on me and asked me confidentially if I would not look the observatory over and see if it was all right.

My examination showed that the thermometers were screwed on tight, which accounted for the amazingly uniform readings shown on his chart.  The pluviometer was inside the box, and therefore it would have been difficult to convince scientists that the clouds had not entirely skipped Remate de Males during the rainy season, unless the postmaster were to put the whole observatory under water by main force.  He also had a chart showing the distribution of clouds on each day of the year.  I noticed that the letter “N” occupied a suspiciously large percentage of the space on the chart, and when I asked him for the meaning of this he said that “N”—­which in meteorological abbreviation means Nimbus—­stood for “None” (in Portuguese Nao).  And he thought that he must be right because it was the rainy season.