148 LOWER AMAZON —OBYDOS TO MANAOS. Cuapr. VIL. 
turned up, sawing and planing as though he was well used to the trade. 
Next to Padre Torquato, Senhor Meirelles well deserves mention ; a 
more sensible, intelligent and kind-hearted man I never met with in 
Brazil. He also held some appointment under Government, but his 
time was chiefly taken up with the management of his plantations situ- 
ated three miles below the village. Both these worthy men were fond 
of reading, and subscribed regularly to Rio Janeiro daily newspapers. 
Senhor Meirelles spent a deal of money on dear books, which he sent 
for by a parcel at a time from the metropolis, two thousand miles off. 
Some of these were Portuguese periodicals, on the plan of the English 
Penny Magazine ; most of them, however, were translations of romances‘ 
chiefly French. ‘They circulated freely amongst the many readers at 
Villa Nova. At the time of my visit ‘‘ Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” translated 
into Portuguese, was a great favourite. I found a love of reading not 
at all uncommon amongst the better sort of people in the towns and 
villages on the Amazons ; it seems natural to the climate, and is pro- 
moted by the occupation being well suited to the hot and lazy hours 
of midday. It isa pity the Portuguese language, on account of the 
poverty of its modern literature, is so poor a medium for acquiring 
knowledge, and that books are so scarce in Northern Brazil, otherwise 
the Amazonian people would not be condemned to the wretchedly 
narrow range of information which is now generally their lot. A system 
of popular education, supported entirely by the Government, has been 
established for some time in Brazil, and a primary school for boys exists 
in every small town from Pard to the frontiers of the Empire. Padre 
Torquato was the schoolmaster, as well as the priest at Villa Nova. 
He had about thirty scholars, who were of all shades of colour, from 
the negro and Indian to the pure white. The schoolmasters, as men- 
tioned in a former chapter, receive the same amount of salary as the 
priests—namely, 600 milreis, or about £70 a year ; but they are entitled 
to a bonus if the number of scholars exceeds a certain limit. In some 
of the larger villages, schools for girls have also been established. It is 
very desirable that these should be well supported, for the future advance- 
ment of the Brazilian people towards a better social condition depends 
in a great measure on the improvement in the education of their women. 
Villa Nova, like most places on the main Amazons, is very healthy ; 
it is considerably more so than Santarem, where the climate is much 
drier and hotter, or the regions farther west, where the air is sultry and 
stagnant. The cool and invigoratiag east wind becomes neutralised 
before reaching the Rio Negro, but at Villa Nova, in average seasons, 
it blows daily, with the exception of a few weeks’ interval in November, 
from the beginning of September to the end of January. The river, 
here about two and a half miles broad, makes a bold sweep of ten or 
twelve miles free of islands, the blue ridge of the Parentins terminating 
the prospect down stream. The broad, rapidly-flowing current, with 
the brisk counter-movement of the atmosphere, are no doubt the chief 
causes of the salubrity of the district. ‘The seasons vary very con- 
siderably. Thus, in 1849, as already mentioned, the period of dryness 
and strong breezes was unusually short, and the river, in consequence, 
did not sink to its usual level. In 1854 I witnessed the opposite 
