330 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- 



