Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/206

 176 TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. [March,

monotonous dances, accompanied by strange figures and con- tortions. The young girls generally came neatly dressed, their glossy hair beautifully plaited, and with gay ribbons or flowers to set it off. The moment the xirac is finished the party breaks up, as they do not seem to think it possible to dance without it : sometimes they make enough to last two or three days. Their dances appear quite national, but they have appa- rently left off paint, as I saw very little used.

The language spoken by these people is called the Maniva or Baniwa, but it differs considerably from the Baniwa of the Rio Negro, and is not so harsh and guttural. At Tdmo and Marda another language is spoken, quite distinct from this, but still called, the Baniwa ; a little further down, at Sao Carlos, the Barre is used ; so that almost every village has its language. Here the men and old women all speak Spanish tolerably, there having formerly been priests living at the Convento, who instructed them. The younger women and the boys and girls, not having had this advantage, speak only the native tongue ; but many of them can understand a little Spanish. I found considerable difficulty in making myself intelligible here. The white men, who are called "rationales" (rationals), could understand my mixed Portuguese and Spanish very well, but the Indians, knowing but little Spanish themselves, cannot of course comprehend any deviations from the ordinary method of speaking. I found it necessary, therefore, to keep my Spanish by itself, as they could better understand a little and good, than a great deal of explanation in the mixed tongue.

Some of my dull and dreary evenings I occupied in writing a description of the village and its inhabitants, in what may probably be very dreary blank verse ; but as it shows my ideas and thoughts at the time, I may as well give it the reader in place of the more sober and matter-of-fact view of the matter I should probably take now. I give it as I wrote it, in a state of excited indignation against civilised life in general, got up to relieve the monotony of my situation, and not altogether as my views when writing in London in 1853.

A DESCRIPTION OF JAVITA.

" 'lis where the streams divide, to swell the floods Of the two mighty rivers of our globe ; Where gushing brooklets in their narrow beds