The
first contact with Rio was different. For the first time in my life, I was on the other side
of the Equator in the tropics, in the New World. By what major sign, I
wondered, was I about to recognize this three-fold mutation? What
voice would provide me with evidence of it, what note as yet unheard
would be the first to strike my ear? My initial observation was a
trivial one: I felt I was in a drawing-room.
(Tristes Tropiques, p. 85)