Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/320

 When these ceremonies were over, we marched back to the ranch with the band playing and colours flying.

In the afternoon we walked a little way up and down the stream, and saw some gold-washing on a homœopathic scale. The land belongs to a Brazilian, who gets three or four milreis a day out of it (about eight shillings). We then sat down in the village on benches in the shade. The men drank beer and smoked cigarettes, and I took my needlework and talked with them.

In the evening the English engineers gave us a big dinner in the ranch, and how they managed to do it so well I cannot imagine. It was like a big picnic. The village padre sat at the head of the long wooden table, and I at the bottom, and on wooden benches at each side were eight Englishmen and seventeen Brazilian local magnates. We had chickens, messes of rice and meat, feijão (beans) and farinha (flour), bread, cheese, beer, port, and other drinks—all out of the engineers' stores. It was great fun. Directly after dinner they began speechifying, and each man ended his speech with a little nasal stanza to friendship, the audience taking up the last word. At last somebody drank the health of the married men, and then some one else proposed the health of the single, and then every one began to quarrel as to which was the better and happier state. Richard and Mr. Copsey loudly stood up for the single, and urged them on to greater frenzy, and I would have done the same thing only I was afraid of shocking the padre. The wordy war lasted fully half an hour,