Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/346

 The only laborious work done during the year in these establishments is the felling of timber for new clearings; this happens at the beginning of the dry season, namely, from July to September. Whatever employment the people were engaged in, they did not intermit it during the hot hours of the day. Those who went into the woods took their dinners with them—a small bag of farinha, and a slice of salt fish. About sunset all returned to the house; they then had their frugal suppers, and towards 8 o'clock, after coming to ask a blessing of the patriarchal head of the household, went off to their hammocks to sleep.

There was another visitor besides ourselves, a negro, whom Joaō Trinidade introduced to me as his oldest and dearest friend, who had saved his life during the revolt of 1835. I have, unfortunately, forgotten his name; he was a freeman, and had a sitio of his own, situated about a day's journey from this. There was the same manly bearing about him that I had noticed with pleasure in many other free negroes; but his quiet, earnest manner, and the thoughtful and benevolent expression of his countenance showed him to be a superior man of his class. He told me he had been intimate with our host for thirty years, and that a wry word had never passed between them. At the commencement of the disorders of 1835 he got into the secret of a plot for assassinating his friend, hatched by some villains whose only cause of enmity was their owing him money and envying his prosperity. It was such as these who aroused the stupid and brutal animosity of the Múras against the whites. The negro, on obtaining this news,