8 SANTAREM. Chap. T. 



here as in other parts of the province ; but it seemed 

 to be a growing fashion to substitute rational amuse- 

 ments for the processions and mummeries of the saints' 

 days. The young folks are very musical, the prin- 

 cipal instruments in use being the flute, violin, Spanish 

 guitar, and a small four-stringed viola, called cava- 

 quinho. During the early part of my stay at San- 

 tarem, a little party of instrumentalists, led by a tall, 

 thin, ragged mulatto, who was quite an enthusiast in 

 his art, used frequently to serenade their friends in the 

 cool and brilliant moonlit evenings of the dry season, 

 playing French and Italian marches and dance music 

 with very good effect. The guitar was the favourite 

 instrument with both sexes, as at Par^, ; the piano, how- 

 ever, is now fast superseding it. The ballads sung to 

 the accompaniment of the guitar were not learnt from 

 written or printed music, but communicated orally from 

 one friend to another. They were never spoken of as 

 songs, but modinhas, or " little fashions," each of which 

 had its day, giving way to the next favourite brought 

 by some young fellow from the capital. At festival 

 times there was a great deal of masquerading, in which 

 all the people, old and young, white, negro, and Indian, 

 took great delight. The best things of this kind used 

 to come off during the Carnival, in Easter week, and 

 on St. John's eve ; the negroes having a grand semi- 

 dramatic display in the streets at Christmas time. The 

 more select affairs were got up by the young whites, and 

 coloured men associating with whites. A party of thirty 

 or forty of these used to dress themselves in uniform 

 style, and in very good taste, as cavaliers and dames, each 



