Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/409

 house, in the style of middle-class dwellings of towns, namely, with brick floors and tiled roof, the bricks and tiles having been brought from Pará, 1500 miles distant, the nearest place where they are manufactured in surplus. When Senhor Justo visited me he was much struck with the engravings in a file of "Illustrated London News," which lay on my table. It was impossible to resist his urgent entreaties to let him have some of them "to look at," so one day he carried off a portion of the papers on loan. A fortnight afterwards, on going to request him to return them, I found the engravings had been cut out, and stuck all over the newly whitewashed walls of his chamber, many of them upside down. He thought a room thus decorated with foreign views would increase his importance amongst his neighbours, and when I yielded to his wish to keep them, was boundless in demonstrations of gratitude, ending by shipping a boat-load of turtles for my use at Ega.

These neglected and rude villagers still retained many religious practices which former missionaries or priests had taught them. The ceremony which they observed at Christmas, like that described as practised by negroes in a former chapter, was very pleasing for its simplicity, and for the heartiness with which it was conducted. The church was opened, dried, and swept clean a few days before Christmas-eve, and on the morning all the women and children of the village were busy decorating it with festoons of leaves and wild flowers. Towards midnight it was illuminated inside and out with little oil lamps, made of clay, and the image of the "menino Deus," or Child-God, in its cradle,