CHAPTER: VIII.

SANTAREM.

Situation of Santarem—Manners and customs of the inhabitants—Trade—Climate—

Leprosy— Historical Sketch—Grassy campos and woods—Excursions to Mapiri,

Mahica, and Irura, with sketches of their Natural History; Palms, wild fruit-trees, Mining Wasps, Mason Wasps, Bees, Sloths and Marmoset Monkeys—

Natural History of Termites or White Ants.

I HAVE already given a short account of the size, situation and general appearance of Santarem. Although containing not more than 2,500 inhabitants, it is the most civilised and important settlement on the banks of the main river from Peru to the Atlantic. The pretty little town, or city as it is called, with its rows of tolerably uniform whitewashed and red-tiled houses, surrounded by green gardens and woods, stands on gently sloping ground on the eastern side of the Tapajos, close to its point of junction with the Amazons. A small eminence on which a fort has been erected, but which is now in a dilapidated condition, overlooks the streets, and forms the eastern limit of the mouth of the tributary. The Tapajos at Santarem is contracted to a breadth of about a mile and a half by an accretion of low alluvial land, which forms a kind of delta on the western side; fifteen miles farther up, the river is seen at its full width of ten or a dozen miles, and the magnificent hilly country, through which it flows from the south, is then visible on both shores. This high land, which appears to be a continuation ofthe central table-lands of Brazil, stretches almost without interruption on the eastern side of the river down to its mouth at Santarem. ‘The scenery, as well as the soil, vegetation, and animal tenants of, this region, are widely different from those of the flat and uniform country which borders the Amazons along most part of its course. After travelling week after week on the main river, the aspect of Santarem, with its broad white sandy beach, limpid dark green waters, and line of picturesque hills rising behind over the fringe ofgreen forest, affords an agreeable surprise. On the main Amazons, the prospect is monotonous unless the vessel runs near the shore, when the wonderful diversity and beauty of the vegetation afford constant entertainment. Otherwise, the unvaried, broad yellow stream, and the long low line of forest, which dwindles away in a broken line of trees on the sea-like horizon, and is renewed reach after reach, as the voyager advances, weary by their uniformity.

I arrived at Santarem on my second journey into the interior, in November, 1851, and made it my headquarters for a period, as it

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turned out, of three years and a half. During this time I made, in pursuance of the plan I had framed, many excursions up the Tapajos, and to other places of interest in the surrounding region. On landing, I found no difficulty in hiring a suitable house on the outskirts of the place. It was pleasantly situated near the beach, going towards the aldeia or Indian part of the town. The ground sloped from the back premises down to the waterside, and my little raised verandah overlooked a beautiful flower-garden, a great rarity in this country, which belonged to the neighbours. The house contained only three rooms, one with brick and two with boarded floors. It was substantially built, like all the better sort of houses in Santarem, and had a stuccoed front. The kitchen, as is usual, formed an outhouse placed a few yards distant from the other rooms. The rent was 12,000 reis, or about twenty-seven shillings a month. In this country, a tenant has no extra payments to make; the owners of house property pay a dizimo or tithe, to the “collectoria geral,” or general treasury, but with this the occupier of course has nothing to do. In engaging servants, I had the good fortune to meet with a free mulatto, an industrious and trustworthy young fellow, named José, willing to arrange with me; the people of his family cooking for us, whilst he assisted me in collecting; he proved of the greatest service in the different excursions we subsequently made. Servants of any kind were almost impossible to be obtained at Santarem, free people being too proud to hire themselves, and slaves too few and valuable to their masters to be let out to others. These matters arranged, the house put in order, and a rude table, with a few chairs, bought or borrowed to furnish the house with, I was ready in three or four days to commence my natural-history explorations in the neighbourhood.

I found Santarem quite a different sort of place from the other settlements on the Amazons. At Cameta, the lively, good-humoured, and plain-living Mamelucos formed the bulk of the population, the white immigrants there, as on the Rio Negro and Upper Amazons, seeming to have fraternised well with the aborigines. In the neighbourhood of Santarem the Indians, I believe, were originally hostile to the Portuguese; at any rate, the blending of the two races has not been here on a large scale. I did not find the inhabitants the pleasant, easy-going, and blunt-spoken country folk that are met with in other small towns of the interior. The whites, Portuguese and Brazilians, are a relatively more numerous class here than in other settlements, and make great pretensions to civilisation; they are the merchants and shopkeepers of the place; owners of slaves, cattle, estates, and cacao plantations. Amongst the principal residents must also be mentioned the civil and military authorities, who are generally well-bred and intelligent people from other provinces. Few Indians live in the place; it is too civilised for them, and the lower class is made up (besides the few slaves) of half-breeds, in whose composition negro blood predominates. Coloured people also exercise the different handicrafts; the town supports two goldsmiths, who are mulattoes and have each several apprentices; the blacksmiths are chiefly Indians, as is the case generally throughout the province. The manners of the upper class (copied from those of Para)

are very stiff and formal, and the absence of the hearty hospitality met with in other places produces a disagreeable impression at first. Much ceremony is observed in the intercourse of the principal people with each other, and with strangers. The best room in each house is set apart for receptions, and visitors are expected to present themselves in black dress coats, regardless of the furious heat which rages in the sandy streets of Santarem towards midday, the hour when visits are generally made. In the room a cane-bottomed sofa and chairs, -all lacquered and gilded, are arranged in quadrangular form, and here the visitors are invited to seat themselves, whilst the compliments are passed or the business arranged. In taking leave, the host backs out his guests with repeated bows, finishing at the front door. Smoking is not in vogue amongst this class, but snuff-taking is largely indulged in, and great luxury is displayed in gold and silver snuft-boxes. All the gentlemen, and indeed most of the ladies also, wear gold watches and guard chains. Social parties are not very frequent; the principal men being fully occupied with their business and families, and the rest spending their leisure in billiard and gambling rooms, leaving wives and daughters shut up at home. Occasionally, however, one of the principal citizens gives a ball. In the first that I attended, the gentlemen were seated all the evening on one side of the room, and the Jadies on the other, and partners were allotted by means of numbered cards, distributed by a master of the ceremonies. But the customs changed rapidly in these matters after steamers began to run on the Amazons (in 1853), bringing a flood of new ideas and fashions into the country. The old bigoted Portuguese system of treating women, which stifled social intercourse and wrought endless evils in the private life of the Brazilians, is now being gradually, although slowly, abandoned.

When a stranger arrives at an interior town in Brazil, with the intention of making some stay, he is obliged within three days to present himself at the Police Office, to show his passport. He is then expected to call on the different magistrates, the military commander, and the principal private residents. This done, he has to remain at home a day or two to receive return visits, after which he is considered to be admitted into the best society. Santarem being the head of a comarca or county, as well as a borough, has a resident high judge (Juiz de Direito), besides a municipal judge (Juiz Municipal) and recorder (Promotor publico). ‘The head of the police is also a magistrate, having jurisdiction in minor cases; he is called the delegado or delegate of police, from being appointed by and subordinate to the chief of police in the capital: all these officers are nominated by the Central Government. Ina pretentious place like Santarem, the people attach great importance to these matters, and I had to go a round of visiting before. I finally settled down to work. Notwithstanding the ceremonious manners of the principal inhabitants, I found several most worthy and agreeable people amongst them. Some of the older families, who spend most of their time on their plantations or cattle estates, were as kindhearted and simple in their ways as the Obydos townsfolk. But these are rarely in town, coming only for a few days during the festivals.

They have, however, spacious town-houses, some of them two storeys high, with massive walls of stone or adobe. The principal citizen, Senhor Miguel Pinto de Guimaraens, is a native of the place, and is. an example of the readiness with which talent and industry meet with their reward under the wise government of Brazil. He began life in a very humble way; I was told he was once a fisherman, and retailed the produce of his hook and line or nets in the port. He is now the chief merchant of the district, a large cattle and landed proprietor, and owner of a sugar estate and mills. When the new National Guard was formed in Brazil in 1853, he received from the Emperor the commission of colonel. He is a pale, grave, and white haired, though only middle-aged, man. I saw a good deal of him, and liked his sincerity and the uprightness of his dealings. When I arrived in Santarem he was the delegado of police. He is rather unmerciful both in and out of office towards the shortcomings, in private and public morality, of his fellow-countrymen; but he is very much respected. The nation cannot be a despicable one whose best men are thus able to work themselves up to positions of trust and influence.

The religious festivals were not so numerous here as in other towns,. and such as did take place were very poor and ill attended. ‘There is a handsome church, but the vicar showed remarkably little zeal for religion, except for a few days now and then when the bishop came from Para, on his rounds through the diocese. The people are as fond of holiday-making here as in other parts of the province; but it seemed. to be a growing fashion to substitute rational amusements for the processions and mummeries of the saints’ days. The young folks are very musical, the principal instruments in use being the flute, violin, Spanish guitar, and a small four-stringed viola, called cavaquinho. During the early part of my stay at Santarem, a little party of instru-mentalists, led by a tall, thin, ragged mulatto, who was quite an enthusiast in his art, used frequently to serenade their friends in the cool and brilliant moonlit evenings of the dry season, playing French and Italian marches and dance music with very good effect. The guitar was the favourite instrument with both sexes, as at Parad; the piano, however, is now fast superseding it. The ballads sung to the accompaniment of the guitar were not learnt from written or printed music, but communicated orally from one friend to another. They were never spoken of as songs, but modinhas, or “little fashions,” each of which had its day, giving way to the next favourite brought by some young fellow from the capital. At festival times there was a great deal of masquerading, in which all the people, old and young, white, negro, and Indian, took great delight. The best things of this kind used to come off during the Carnival, in Easter week, and on St. John’s eve; the negroes having a grand semi-dramatic display in the streets at Christmas time. The more select affairs were got up by the young whites, and coloured men associating with whites. A party of thirty or forty of these used to dress themselves in uniform style, and in very good taste, as cavaliers and dames, each disguised with a peculiar. kind of light gauze mask. The troop, with a party of musicians, went the round of their friends’ houses in the evening, and treated the large and

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