THE NATURALIST ON THE RIVER AMAZONS. 



641 



In the middle of it, a scroll is sud- 

 on which is 

 keding Christ. 



This act is accompanied by loud groans 

 which ccme from stout-lunged individuals 

 concealed in the vestry and engaged for the 

 purpose. The priest becomes greatly ex- 

 cited, and actually sheds tears. On one of 

 these occasions I squeezed myself into the 

 crowd, and watched the tffect of the specta- 

 cle on the audience. Old Portuguese men 

 and Brazilian women seemed vtry much 

 affected sobbing, beating their breasts, and 

 telling their beads. The negroes behaved 

 themselves with great propiiety, but seemed 

 moved more particularly by the pomp, the 



the line and the National Guard, take part in church. 



i"t, each battalion accompanied by its band of deuly unfolded from the pulpit, 

 music. The civil authorities also, with the an exaggerated picture of the bice 

 President at their head, and the principal r 

 citizens, including many of the foreign resi- 

 dents, join in the line. The boat of the ship- 

 wrecked Portuguese vessel is carried after 

 the saint on the shoulders of officers or men 

 of the Brazilian navy, and along with it are 

 borne the other symbols of the miracles 

 which Our Lady is supposed to have per- 

 formed. The procession starts soon after 

 the sun's heat begins to moderate that is, 

 about half-past four o'clock in the afternoon. 

 When the image is deposited in the chapel 

 the festival is considered to be inaugurated, 

 and the village every evening becomes the 

 resort of the pleasure-loving population, the 

 holiday portion of the programme being pre- 

 ceded, of course, by a religious service in the 

 chapel. The aspect of the place is then that 

 of a fair ; without the humor and fun, but, 

 iat the same time, without the noise and 

 coarseness, of similar holidays in England. 

 Large rooms are set apart for panoramic and 

 other exhibitions, to which the public are 

 admitted gratis. In the course of each even- 

 ing large displays of fireworks take place, 

 all arranged according to a published pro- 

 gramme of the festival. 



The various ceremonies which take place 

 during Lent seemed to me the most impress- 

 ive, and some of them were exceedingly 

 well arranged. The people, both performers 

 and spectators, conduct themselves with 

 more gravity on these occasions, and there is 

 no holiday-making. Performances repre- 

 senting the last events in the life of Christ 

 are enacted in the churches or streets, in 



f'lding, the dresses, and the general display, 

 oung Brazilians laughed. Several aborig- 

 ines were there, coolly looking on. One 

 old Indian, who was standing near me, said, 

 in a derisive manner, when the sermon was 

 over. " It's all very good ; better it could not 

 be' ' (Esta todo bom ; melhor nao pude ser). 



The negroes of Para are very devout. They 

 have built, by slow degrees, a fine church, 

 as I was told, by their own unaided exer- 

 tions. It is called Nossa Senhora do Rosario, 

 or Our Lady of the Rosary. During the 

 first weeks of our residence at Para, I fre- 

 quently observed a line of negroes and ne- 

 gresses, late at night, marching along the 

 streets, singing a chorus. Each carried on 

 his or ker head a quantity of building mate- 

 rials stones, bricks, mortar, or planks. I 

 found they were chiefly slaves, who, after 

 their hard day's work, were contributing a 

 little toward the construction of their church. 

 The materials had all been purchased by their 

 own savings. The interior was finished 



such a way as to remind one of the old mira- about a y3ar afterward, and is decorated, I 

 c-le plays or masteries. A few days before thought, quite as superbly as the other 

 Good Friday, a torchlight procession takes churches which were constructed, with far 

 place by night, from one church to another, larger means, by the old religious orders more 

 in which is carried a large wooden image of than a century ago. Annually the negroes 

 Christ bent under the weight of the cross, celebrate the festival of Nossa Senhora do 

 The chief members of the Gove rnment assist, Rosario, and generally make it a complete 

 and the whole slowly moves to the sound of success, 

 muffled drums. A double procession is man- 

 aged a few days afterward. The image of I will now add a few more notes which I 

 St. Mary is carried in one direction, and that have accumulated on the subject of the naU 

 of the Saviour in another. The two images ural history, and then we shall have done, 

 meet in the middle of one of the most beauti- for the present, with Para and ita neighbor- 

 ful churches, which is previously filled to ex- hood. 



cess with the multitude anxious to witness I have already mentioned that monkeys 



the affecting meeting of mother and son a were rare in the immediate vicinity of Para, 



few days before the crucifixion. The images I met with three species only in the forest 



are brought face to face in the middle of the near the city ; they are shy animals, and 



church, the crowd falls prostrate, and the avoftl the neighborhood of towns, where they 



Jachrymose sermon is delivered from the are subject to much persecution by the in- 



pulpit. The whole thing, as well as many habitants, who kill them for food. The only 



other spectacles arranged during the few sue- kind which I saw frequently was the little 



ceeding days, is highly theatrical, and well Midas ursulus* one of the " 

 calculated to excite the religious emotions of 

 the people, although, perhaps, only tempo- 

 rarily. On Good Friday the bells do not 

 ring, all musical sounds are interdicted, and 



the hours, night and day, are announced by true monkeys in their manner of climbing, 



the dismal noise of wooden clappers wielded The nails, except those of the hind thumbs, 



by negroes stationed near the different are long and claw-shaped like those of squir- 

 churches. A sermon is delivered in eaci^jels, and the thumbs of the fore extremities. 



Marmosets, 



family peculiar to tropical America, and 

 differing in many essential points of structure 

 and habits from all other apes. They are 

 small in size, and more like squirrels than 



