Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/198

 very intelligible. One day, soon after my arrival, when I was explaining these things to a listening circle seated on benches in the grassy street, one of the audience, a considerable tradesman, a Mameluco native of Ega, got suddenly quite enthusiastic, and exclaimed "How rich are these great nations of Europe! We half-civilised creatures know nothing. Let us treat this stranger well, that he may stay amongst us and teach our children." We very frequently had social parties, with dancing and so forth; of these relaxations I shall have more to say presently. The manners of the Indian population also gave me some amusement for a long time. During the latter part of my residence, three wandering Frenchmen, and two Italians, some of them men of good education, on their road one after the other from the Andes down the Amazons, became enamoured of this delightfully-situated and tranquil spot, and made up their minds to settle here for the remainder of their lives. Three of them ended by marrying native women. I found the society of these friends a very agreeable change.

There were, of course, many drawbacks to the amenities of the place as a residence for a European; but these were not of the nature that my readers would perhaps imagine. There was scarcely any danger from wild animals: it seems almost ridiculous to refute the idea of danger from the natives in a country where even incivility to an unoffending stranger is a rarity. A Jaguar, however, paid us a visit one night. It was considered an extraordinary event, and so much uproar was made by the men who turned out with guns and