Cuap. VI. OBYDOS. 123 
time a cruel traffic was carried on in Indians for the same purpose of 
forced servitude, but their numbers have gradually dwindled away, and 
Indians now form an insignificant element in the population of the 
district. Most of the Obydos townsfolk are owners of cacao plantations, 
which are situated on the lowlands in the vicinity. Some are large 
cattle proprietors, and possess estates of many square leagues’ extent in 
the campo, or grass-land districts, which border the Lago Grande and 
other similar inland lakes, near the villages of Faro and Alemquer. 
These campos bear a crop of nutritious grass; but in certain seasons, 
when the rising of the Amazons exceeds the average, they are apt to be 
flooded, and then the large herds of half-wild cattle suffer great mortality 
from drowning, hunger, and the alligators. Neither in cattle-keeping 
nor cacao-growing are any but the laziest and most primitive methods 
followed, and the consequence is that the proprietors are generally 
poor. A few, however, have become rich by applying a moderate 
amount of industry and skill to the management of their estates. 
People spoke of several heiresses in the neighbourhood whose wealth 
was reckoned in oxen and slaves; a dozen slaves and a few hundred 
head of cattle being considered a great fortune. Some of them I saw 
had already been appropriated by enterprising young men, who had 
come from Para and Maranham to seek their fortunes in this quarter. 
The weeks I spent here passed away pleasantly. I generally spent 
the evenings in the society of the townspeople, who associated together 
(contrary to Brazilian custom) in European fashion; the different 
families meeting at one another’s houses for social amusement, bachelor 
friends not being excluded, and the whole company, married and 
single, joining in simple games. The meetings used to take place in 
the sitting-rooms, and not in the open verandahs—a fashion almost 
compulsory on account of the mosquitoes ; but the evenings here are 
very cool, and the closeness of a room is not so much felt as it is in Para. 
Sunday was strictly observed at Obydos; at least all the shops are 
closed, and almost the whole population went to church. The vicar, 
Padre Raimundo do Sanchez Brito, was an excellent old man, and I 
fancy the friendly manners of the people, and the general purity of 
morals at Obydos, were owing in great part to the good example he set 
to his parishioners. 
One day the owner of the house in which I occupied a room, Major 
Martinho da Fonseca Seixas, came over from his estate on the opposite 
bank of the river. He was aman of great importance in the district, 
and the only one who had had enterprise sufficient to establish a 
sugar-mill. He crossed over soon after sunrise in a small boat, with 
four dark-skinned paddlers, who made the morning air ring with a 
wild chorus, which their master, I was told, always made them sing, 
to beguile the way. I found him a tall, wiry, and sharp-featured old 
gentleman, with a shrewd but good-humoured expression of countenance 
—quite a typical specimen, in fact, of the old school of Brazilian 
planters. He landed in dressing-gown and slippers, and came up the 
beach chattering, scolding, and gesticulating. Several friends joined 
him, and we soon had the house full of company. After taking coffee 
and a hot buttered roll, he dressed and went to mass, whilst I slipped off 
