Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/336

 of the country for generosity, and for being a firm friend of foreign residents and stray travellers. Some of these excellent people were men of substance, being owners of trading vessels, slaves, and extensive plantations of cacao and tobacco.

We stayed at Serpa five days. Some of the ceremonies observed at Christmas were interesting, inasmuch as they were the same, with little modification, as those taught by the Jesuit missionaries more than a century ago to the aboriginal tribes whom they had induced to settle on this spot. In the morning all the women and girls, dressed in white gauze chemises and showy calico print petticoats, went in procession to church, first going the round of the town to take up the different "mordomos" or stewards, whose office is to assist the Juiz of the festa. These stewards carried each a long white reed, decorated with coloured ribbons; several children also accompanied, grotesquely decked with finery. Three old squaws went in front, holding the "sairé,",," [sic] a large semicircular frame, clothed with cotton and studded with ornaments, bits of looking-glass, and so forth. This they danced up and down, singing all the time a monotonous whining hymn in the Tupí language, and at frequent intervals turning round to face the followers, who then all stopped for a few moments. I was told that this sairé was a device adopted by the Jesuits to attract the savages to church, for these everywhere followed the mirrors, in which they saw as it were magically reflected their own persons. In the evening, good-humoured revelry prevailed on all sides. The negroes, who had a saint of their own colour—St. Bene-