THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



639 



had opportunities of nhqerving its habits. It 

 -soon becomes tame, and walks about the 

 floors of houses, picking up scraps of food, 

 or catching insects, which it secures by walk- 

 ing gently to the place where they settle, ar..d 

 spearing them with its long slender beak. It 

 allows itself to be handled by children, and 

 will answer to its name, " PavaO I PavaS !" 

 walking up with a dainty, circumspect gait, 

 and taking a fly or beetle from the hand. 



During these rambles by land and water 

 -we increased our collections considerably. 

 Before we left the mills we arranged a joint 

 excursion to the Tocantins. Mr. Leavens 

 wished to ascend that river to ascertain if the 

 reports were true, that cedar grew abundant- 

 ly between the lowermost cataract and the 

 mouth of the Araguaya, and we agreed to ac- 

 company him. While we were at the mills, 

 a Portuguese trader arrived with a quantity of 

 worm-eaten logs of this cedar, which he had 

 gathered from the floating timber in the cur- 

 rent of the main Amazons. The tree pro- 

 ducing this wood, which is named cedar on 

 account of the similarity of its aroma to that 

 of the true cedars, is not, of course, a conifer- 

 ous tree, as no member of that class is found 

 in equatorial America, at least in the Ama- 

 zons region. It is, according to Von Martius, 

 the Cedrela odorata, an exogen belonging to 

 the same order as the mahogany-tree. The 

 wood is light, and the tree is therefore, on 

 falling into the water, floated down with the 

 river currents. It must grow in great quan- 

 tities somewhere in the interior, to judge 

 from the number of uprooted trees annually 

 carried to the sea ; and as the wood is much 

 esteemed for cabinet-work and canoe- build- 

 ing, it is of some importance to learn where 

 a regular supply can be obtained. We were 

 glad of course to arrange with Mr. Leavens, 

 who was familiar with the language, and an 

 adept in river-navigation ; so we returned to 

 Par& to ship our collections for England, and 

 prepare for the journey to a new region. 



CHAPTER III. 



PARl. 



Religions holidays Marmoset monkeys Serpents- 

 Insects. 



BEFORE leaving the subject of Par&, where 

 1 resided, as already stated, in all eighteen 

 months, it will be necessary to give a more 

 detailed account of several matters connected 

 with the customs of the people and the nat- 

 ural history of the neighborhood, which have 

 hitherto been only briefly mentioned. I re- 

 serve an account of the trade and improved 

 condilion of Para in 1859 for the end of this 

 narrative. 



During the first few weeks of our stay 

 many of those religious festivals took place, 

 which occupied so large a share of the time 

 and thoughts of the people. These were 

 splendid affairs, wherein artistically-arranged 

 processions through the streets, accompanied 

 by thousands of people, military displays, 

 the clatter of fireworks, and the clang of 

 military music, were super added to pomp- 



ous religious services hi tL_ churches. 

 To those who had witnessed similar cere- 

 monies in the southern countries of 

 Europe, there would be nothing remarkable 

 perhaps in these doings, except their taking 

 place amid the splendors of tropical nature ; 

 but to me they were full of novelty, and 

 were besides interesting as exhibiting much 

 that was peculiar in the manners of the 

 people. The festivals celebrate either the 

 anniversaries of events concerning saints, or 

 those of the more important transactions in 

 the life of Christ. To them have been add- 

 ed, since the Independence, many gala days 

 connected with the events in the Brazilian 

 national history ; but these have all a semi- 

 religious character. The holidays had be- 

 come so numerous, and interfered so much 

 with trade and industry toward the year 1852, 

 that the Brazilian Government was obliged 

 to reduce them; obtaining the necessary 

 permission from Rome to abolish several 

 which were of minor importance. Many of 

 those which have been retained are declining 

 in importance since the introduction of rail- 

 ways and steamboats, and the increased de- 

 votion of the people to commerce ; at the 

 time of our arrival, however, they were in 

 full glory. The way they were managed 

 was in this -fashion. A general manager or 

 " Juiz" for each festa was elected by lot 

 every year in the vestry of the church, and 

 to him were handed over all the parapher- 

 nalia pertaining to the particular festival 

 which he was chosen to manage ; the image 

 of the saint, the banners, silver crowns, and 

 so forth. He then employed a number of 

 people to go the round of the parish and col- 

 lect alms toward defraying the expenses. It 

 was considered that the greater the amount 

 of money spent in wax-candles, fireworks, 

 music and feasting, the greater the honor 

 done to the saint. If the Juiz was a rich 

 man, he seldom sent out alms-gatherers, but 

 celebrated the whole affair at his own ex- 

 pense, which was sometimes to the extent of 

 several hundred pounds Each festival lasted 

 nine days (a novena), and in many cases re- 

 freshments for the public were provided every 

 evening. In the smaller towns a ball took 

 place two or three evenings during the nove- 

 na, and on the last day there was a grand 

 dinner. The priest, of course, had to be paid 

 very liberally, especially for the sermon de- 

 livered on the Saint's day or termination of 

 the festivals, sermons being extra duty in 

 Brazil. 



There was much difference as to the acces- 

 sories of these festivals between the interior 

 towns and villages and the capital ; but little 

 or no work was done anywhere while they 

 lasted, and they tended much to demoralize 

 the people. It is soon perceived that religion 

 is rather the amusement of the Paraenses 

 than their serious exercise. The ideas of the 

 majority evidently do not reach beyond the 

 belief that all the proceedings are, in each 

 case, in honor of the particular wooden image 

 enshrined at the church. The uneducated 

 Portuguese immigrants seemed to me to have 



