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 



