88 CARIPf AND THE BAY OF MARAJO. Cuap. V. 
on the banks of retired creeks and rivulets in the interior. I led here 
a solitary but not unpleasant life; for there was a great charm in the 
loneliness of the place. The swell of the river beating on the sloping 
beach caused an unceasing murmur, which lulled me to sleep at night, 
and seemed appropriate music in those midday hours when all nature 
was pausing breathless under the rays of a vertical sun. Here I spent 
my first Christmas-day in a foreign land. The festival was celebrated 
by the negroes of their own free will, and ina very pleasing manner. 
The room next to the one I had chosen was the capella, or chapel. It 
had a little altar which was neatly arranged, and the room was furnished 
with a magnificent brass chandelier. Men, women, and children were 
busy in the chapel all day on the 24th of December, decorating the 
altar with flowers and strewing the floor with orange-leaves. They 
invited some of their neighbours to the evening prayers ; and when the 
simple ceremony began, an hour before midnight, the chapel was 
crowded. ‘They were obliged to dispense with the mass, for they had 
no priest ; the service therefore consisted merely of a long litany and 
a few hymns. There was placed on the altar a small image of the 
infant Christ, the ‘‘ Menino Deos” as they called it, or the Child-God, 
which had a long ribbon depending from its waist. An old white-haired 
negro led off the litany, and the rest of the people joined in the re- 
sponses. After the service was over they all went up to the altar, one 
by one, and kissed the end of the ribbon. The gravity and earnestness 
shown throughout the proceedings were remarkable. Some of the 
hymns were very simple and beautiful, especially one beginning “ Virgem 
soberana,” a trace of whose melody springs to my recollection whenever 
I think on the dreamy solitude of Caripi. 
The next day after I arrived two blue-eyed and red-haired boys came 
up and spoke to me in English, and presently their father made his 
appearance. They proved to be a German family named Petzell, who 
were living in the woods, Indian fashion, about a mile from Caripi. 
Petzell explained to me how he came here. He said that thirteen years 
ago he came to Brazil with a number of other Germans under engage- 
ment to serve in the Brazilian army. When his time had expired he 
came to Parad to see the country, but after a few months’ rambling left 
the place to establish himself in the United States. There he married, 
went to Illinois, and settled as farmer near St. Louis. He remained on 
his farm seven or eight years, and had a family of five children. He 
could never forget, however, the free river life and perpetual summer 
of the banks of the Amazons, so he persuaded his wife to consent to 
break up their home in North America, and migrate to Pard. No one 
can imagine the difficulties the poor fellow had to go through before 
reaching the land of his choice. He first descended the Mississippi, 
feeling sure that a passage to Para could be got at New Orleans. He 
was there told that the only port in North America he could start from 
was New York ; but there was no chance of a vessel sailing thence to 
Para, so he took a passage to Demerara, as bringing him, at any rate, 
near to the desired land. There isno communication whatever between 
Demerara and Para, and he was forced to remain here with his family 
four or five months, during which they all caught the yellow fever, and 
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