130 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
bride, who was as black as jet, was dressed in white muslin, 
with a veil of coarse white lace, such as the negro women 
make themselves, and the husband was in a white linen 
suit. She looked, and I think she really felt, diffident, 
for there were a good many strangers present, and her 
position was embarrassing. The Portuguese priest, a bold, 
insolent-looking man, called them up and rattled over' 
the marriage service with most irreverent speed, stopping 
now and then to scold them both, but especially the woman, 
because she did not speak loud enough and did not take the 
whole thing in the same coarse, rough way that he did. 
When he ordered them to come up and kneel at the 
altar, his tone was more suggestive of cursing than pray- 
ing, and having uttered his blessing he hurled an amen 
at them, slammed the prayer-book down on the altar, 
whiffed out the candles, and turned the bride and bride- 
groom out of the chapel with as little ceremony as one 
would have kicked out a dog. As the bride came out, 
half crying, half smiling, her mother met her and show- 
ered her with rose-leaves, and so this act of consecration, 
in which the mother's benediction seemed the only grace, 
was over. I thought what a strange confusion there must 
be in these poor creature's minds, if they thought about 
it at all. They are told that the relation between man 
and wife is a sin, unless confirmed by the sacred rite of 
marriage ; they come to hear a bad man gabble over them 
words which they cannot understand, mingled with taunts 
and abuse which they understand only too well, and side 
by side with their own children grow up the little fair- 
skinned slaves to tell them practically that the white man 
does not keep himself the law he imposes on them. What 
a monstrous lie the whole system must seem to them if they 
