268 UPPER AMAZONS—VOYAGE TO EGA. Cuap. X. 
however, was ruddy, and scarcely betrayed the mixture. He received 
us in a very cordial, winning manner: I had afterwards occasion to be 
astonished at the boundless good nature of this excellent fellow, whose 
greatest pleasure seemed to be to make sacrifices for his friends. He 
was a Paraense, and came to Ega originally as a trader; but not 
succeeding in this, he turned planter on a small scale, and collector of 
the natural commodities of the country, employing half a dozen Indians 
in the business. We then visited the military commandant, an officer 
in the Brazilian army, named Praia. He was breakfasting with the 
vicar, and we found the two in dishabille (morning-gown loose round 
the neck, and slippers), seated at a rude wooden table in an open mud- 
floored verandah, at the back of the house. Commander Praia was a 
little curly-headed man (also somewhat of a muiatto), always merry and 
fond of practical jokes. His wife, Donna Anna, a dressy dame from 
Santarem, was the leader of fashion in the settlement. The vicar, 
Father Luiz Gonsalvo Gomez, was a nearly pure-blood Indian, a native 
of one of the neighbouring villages, but educated in Maranham, a city 
on the Atlantic seaboard. I afterwards saw a good deal of him, as he 
was an agreeable, sociable fellow, fond of reading and hearing about 
foreign countries, and quite free from the prejudices which might be 
expected in a man of his profession. I found him, moreover, a 
thoroughly upright, sincere and virtuous man. He supported his aged 
mother and unmarried sisters in a very creditable way out of his small 
salary and emoluments. It is a pleasure to be able to speak in these 
terms of a Brazilian priest, for the opportunity occurs rarely enough. 
Leaving these agreeable new acquaintances to finish their breakfast, 
we next called on the Director of the Indians of the Japtra, Senhor 
José Chrysostomo Monteiro, a thin, wiry Mameluco, the most enter- 
prising person in the settlement. Each of the neighbouring rivers with 
its numerous wild tribes is under the control of a Director, who is 
nominated by the Imperial Government. There are now no missions 
in the region of the Upper Amazons: the “‘gentios” (heathens, or 
unbaptised Indians) being considered under the management and 
protection of these despots, who, like the captains of Trabalhadores, 
before mentioned, use the natives for their own private ends ; Senhor 
Chrysostomo had, at this time, 200 of the Japtira Indians in his employ. 
He was half Indian himself, but was a far worse master to the red-skins 
than the whites usually are. We finished our rounds by paying our 
respects to a venerable native merchant, Senor Romao de Oliveira, 
a tall, corpulent, fine-looking old man, who received us with a naive 
courtesy quite original in its way. He had been an industrious, enter- 
prising man in his younger days, and had built a substantial range of 
houses and warehouses. The shrewd and able old gentleman knew 
nothing of the world beyond the wilderness of the Solimoens and its 
few thousands of isolated inhabitants ; yet he could converse well and 
sensibly, making observations on men and things as sagaciously as 
though he had drawn them from long experience of life in a European 
capital. The semi-civilised Indians respected old Roma6, and he had, 
consequently, a great number in his employ in different parts of the 
river: his vessels were always filled quicker with produce than those of 
