Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/417

 near neighbours, but they took offence at me after the first few days, because I would not join them in their drinking bouts, which took place about every third day. They used to begin early in the morning with Cashaça mixed with grated ginger, a powerful drink which used to excite them almost to madness. Neighbour Geraldo, after these morning potations, used to station himself opposite my house and rave about foreigners, gesticulating in a threatening manner towards me, by the hour. After becoming sober in the evening, he usually came to offer me the humblest apologies, driven to it, I believe, by his wife, he himself being quite unconscious of this breach of good manners. The wives of the St. Paulo worthies, however, were generally as bad as their husbands; nearly all the women being hard drinkers, and corrupt to the last degree. Wife-beating naturally flourished under such a state of things. I found it always best to lock myself in-doors after sunset, and take no notice of the thumps and screams which used to rouse the village in different quarters throughout the night, especially at festival times.

The only companionable man I found in the place, except José Patricio, who was absent most part of the time, was the negro tailor of the village, a tall, thin, grave young man, named Mestre Chico (Master Frank), whose acquaintance I had made at Pará several years previously. He was a free negro by birth, but had had the advantage of kind treatment in his younger days, having been brought up by a humane and sensible man, one Captain Basilio, of Pernambuco, his padrinho, or godfather. He neither drank, smoked, nor gambled,