Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/266

 a room, Major Martinho da Fonseca Seixas, came over from his estate on the opposite bank of the river. He was a man of great importance in the district, and the only one who had had enterprise sufficient to establish a sugar-mill. He crossed over soon after sunrise in a small boat, with four dark-skinned paddlers, who made the morning air ring with a wild chorus which their master, I was told, always made them sing, to beguile the way. I found him a tall, wiry, and sharp-featured old gentleman, with a shrewd but good-humoured expression of countenance—quite a typical specimen, in fact, of the old school of Brazilian planters. He landed in dressing-gown and slippers, and came up the beach chattering, scolding, and gesticulating. Several friends joined him, and we soon had the house full of company. After taking coffee and a hot buttered roll, he dressed and went to mass, whilst I slipped off to spend an hour or two in the woods. When I came back I found the Major with his friends seated in hammocks, two by two, slung in the four corners of the room, and all engaged in a lively discussion on political questions. They had a demijohn of cashaça in their midst, and were helping themselves freely, drinking out of little tea-cups. One of the company was a dark-skinned Cametaense, named Senhor Calisto Pantoja, a very agreeable fellow, and as full of talk as the Major. Like most of his townsmen, he was a Santa Luzia, or Liberal, whilst the old gentleman was a rabid Tory. Pantoja rather nettled the old man by saying that the Cametá people had held their town against the rebels in 1835, whilst the whites of Obydos abandoned theirs to be pillaged by them. The Major