Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/109

 opportunity to pay a visit to the lady. The husband, however, returned rather unexpectedly, and the visitor climbed up on the rafters to be out of sight among the old boards and baskets that were stowed away there. The husband put his gun by in a corner, and called to his wife to get his supper, and then sat down in his hammock. Casting his eyes up to the rafters, he saw a leg protruding from among the baskets, and, thinking it something supernatural, crossed himself, and said, 'Lord, deliver us from the legs appearing overhead!' The other, hearing this, attempted to draw up his legs out of sight, but, losing his balance, came down suddenly on the floor in front of the astonished husband, who, half frightened, asked, 'Where. do you come from?' 'I have just come from heaven,' said the other, 'and have brought you news of your little daughter Maria.' 'Oh! wife, wife! come and see a man who has brought us news of our little daughter Maria;' then, turning to the visitor, continued, 'And what was my little daughter doing when you left?' 'Oh! she was sitting at the feet of the Virgin, with a golden crown on her head, and smoking a golden pipe a yard long.' 'And did she not send any message tous?' 'Qh yes, she sent many remembrances, and begged you to send her two pounds of your tobacco from the little thossa, they have not got any half so good up there.' 'Oh! wife, wife! bring two pounds of our tobacco from the little rhossa, for our daughter Maria is in heaven, and she says they have not any half so good up there.' So the tobacco was brought, and the visitor was departing, when he was asked, "Are there many white men up there?' 'Very few,' he replied; 'they are all down below with the diabo.' 'I thought so,' the other replied, apparently quite satisfied; 'good-night!'"

Senhor Calistro had a beautiful canoe made of a single piece of wood, without a nail, the benches being all notched in. He often went in it to Para, near two hundred miles, and, with twelve good Indians to paddle, and plenty of caxaça, reached the city, without stopping, in twenty-four hours. We sometimes went out to inspect the cane-fields in this canoe, with eight little Negro and Indian boys to paddle, who were always ready for such service. I then took my gun and net, and shot some birds or caught any insects that we met with, while Senhor Calistro would send the boys to climb after any handsome flowers I admired, or to gather the fruit of the