880 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 
The padre of this little village, Father Samuel, an Italian 
priest, who has passed many years of his life among the 
Indians of South America, partly in Bolivia and partly in 
Brazil, had not so much to say in favor of the healthful- 
ness of his parish as the padre whom we had seen the 
night before in Taua Peassu. He told us that intermit- 
tent fever, from which he had suffered much himself, is 
frequent, and that the people are poorly and insufficiently 
fed. When they have had no recent arrival from Manaos, 
neither coffee, sugar, tea, nor bread are to be had in the 
village. As there is no beach here, the fishing is done at 
a distance on the other side of the river ; and when the 
waters are very high, fish are not obtained even there. At 
such times the Indians live exclusively on farinha d'agua 
and water. This meagre diet, though injurious to the health, 
satisfies the cravings of hunger with those accustomed to 
it ; but the few whites in this solitary place suffer severely. 
What a comment is this scarcity of food on the indo- 
lence and indifference of the population in a region where 
an immense variety of vegetables might be cultivated with 
little labor, where the pasturage is excellent (as is attested by 
the fine condition of the few cows at Pedreira), and where 
coffee, cacao, cotton, and sugar have a genial climate and 
soil, and yield more copious crops than in many countries 
from which large exports of these productions are made ! 
And yet, in this land of abundance, the people live in dread 
of actual want. The village consists, as I have said, of 
some fifteen or twenty houses, all of which are at this 
moment occupied ; but Father Samuel tells us that we see 
the little place at its flood-tide, Christmas week having 
brought together the inhabitants of the neighborhood. 
They will disperse again, after a few days, to their palm- 
