Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/95

 tions. The village itself is a neglected, poverty-stricken place: the governor (Captain of Trabalhadores or Indian workmen) being an old, apathetic half-breed, who had spent all his life here. The priest was a most profligate character; I seldom saw him sober; he was a white, however, and a man of good ability. I may as well mention here, that a moral and zealous priest is a great rarity in this province: the only ministers of religion in the whole country who appeared sincere in their calling, being the Bishop of Pará and the Vicars of Ega on the Upper Amazons and Obydos. The houses in the village swarmed with vermin; bats in the thatch; fire-ants (formiga de fogo) under the floors; cockroaches and spiders on the walls. Very few of them had wooden doors and locks. Altar do Chaõ was originally a settlement of the aborigines, and was called Burarí. The Indians were always hostile to the Portuguese, and during the disorders of 1835–6 joined the rebels in the attack on Santarem. Few of them escaped the subsequent slaughter, and for this reason there is now scarcely an old or middle-aged man in the place. As in all the semi-civilised villages where the original orderly and industrious habits of the Indian have been lost without anything being learnt from the whites to make amends, the inhabitants live in the greatest poverty. The scarcity of fish in the clear waters and rocky bays of the neighbourhood is no doubt partly the cause of the poverty and perennial hunger which reign here. When we arrived in the port our canoe was crowded with the half-naked villagers—men, women, and children, who came to beg each a piece of