Chap. VI. CHRISTMAS. 389 



house, in the style of middle-class dwellings of towns, 

 namely, with brick floors and tiled roof, the bricks and 

 tiles having been brought from Para, 1500 miles dis- 

 tant, the nearest place where they are manufactured in 

 surplus. When Senhor Justo visited me he was much 

 struck with the engravings in a file of "Illustrated 

 London News," which lay on my table. It was impos- 

 sible to resist his urgent entreaties to let him have 

 some of them " to look at," so one day he carried off a 

 portion of the papers on loan. A fortnight afterwards, 

 on going to request him to return them, I found the 

 engravings had been cut out, and stuck all over the 

 newly whitewashed walls of his chamber, many of them 

 upside down. He thought a room thus decorated with 

 foreign views would increase his importance amongst 

 his neighbours, and when I yielded to his wish to keep 

 them, was boundless in demonstrations of gratitude, end- 

 ing by shipping a boat-load of turtles for my use at Ega. 

 These neglected and rude villagers still retained 

 many religious practices which former missionaries or 

 priests had taught them. The ceremony which they 

 observed at Christmas, like that described as practised 

 by negroes in a former chapter, was very pleasing for 

 its simplicity, and for the heartiness with which it was 

 conducted. The church was opened, dried, and swept 

 clean a few days before Christmas-eve, and on the 

 morning all the women and children of the village were 

 busy decorating it with festoons of leaves and wild 

 flowers. Towards midnight it was illuminated inside 

 and out with little oil lamps, made of clay, and the 

 image of the " menino Deus," or Child-God, in its cradle, 



