Chai\ II. SCARCITY OF FOOD. 81 



tions. The village itself is a neglected, poverty-stricken 

 place : the governor (Captain of Trabalhaclores or Indian 

 workmen) being an old, apathetic half-breed, who had 

 spent all his life here. The priest was a most profligate 

 character ; I seldom saw him sober ; he was a white, 

 however, and a man of good ability. I may as well 

 mention here, that a moral and zealous priest is a great 

 rarity in this province : the only ministers of religion in 

 the whole country who appeared sincere in their calling, 

 being the Bishop of Para and the Vicars of Ega on 

 the Upper Amazons and Obydos. The houses in the 

 village swarmed with vermin ; bats in the thatch ; fire- 

 ants (formiga de fogo) under the floors ; cockroaches 

 and spiders on the walls. Very few of them had 

 wooden doors and locks. Altar do Chao was originally 

 a settlement of the aborigines, and was called Burari. 

 The Indians were always hostile to the Portuguese, and 

 during the disorders of 1835-6 joined the rebels in 

 the attack on Santarem. Few of them escaped the 

 subsequent slaughter, and for this reason there is now 

 scarcely an old or middle-aged man in the place. As 

 in all the semi-civilised villages where the original 

 orderly and industrious habits of the Indian have been 

 lost without anything being learnt from the whites to 

 make amends, the inhabitants live in the greatest 

 poverty. The scarcity of fish in the clear waters and 

 rocky bays of the neighbourhood is no doubt partly the 

 cause of the poverty and perennial hunger which 

 reign here. When we arrived in the port our canoe 

 was crowded with the half-naked villagers — men, 

 women, and children, who came to beg each a piece of 



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