390 EXCURSIONS BEYOND EGA. Chap. VI. 



was placed below the altar, which was lighted up with 

 rows of wax candles, very lean ones, but the best the poor 

 people could afford. All the villagers assembled soon 

 afterwards, dressed in their best, the women with flowers 

 in their hair, and a few simple hymns, totally irrelevant 

 to the occasion, but probably the only ones known by 

 them, were sung kneeling ; an old half-caste, with black- 

 spotted face, leading off the tunes. This finished, the 

 congregation rose, and then marched in single file up 

 one side of the church and down the other, singing to- 

 gether a very pretty marching chorus, and each one, 

 on reaching the little image, stooping to kiss the end 

 of a ribbon which was tied round its waist. Consider- 

 ing that the ceremony was got up of their own free- 

 will, and at considerable expense, I thought it spoke 

 well for the good intentions and simplicity of heart of 

 these poor, neglected villagers. 



I left Fonte Boa, for Ega, on the 25th of January, 

 making the passage by steamer, down the middle of the 

 current, in sixteen hours. The sight of the clean and 

 neat little town, with its open spaces, close-cropped 

 grass, broad lake, and white sandy shores, had a most 

 exhilarating effect, after my trip into the wilder parts 

 of the country. The district between Ega and Loreto, 

 the first Peruvian village on the river, is, indeed, the 

 most remote, thinly-peopled, and barbarous of the 

 whole line of the Amazons, from ocean to ocean. Be- 

 yond Loreto, signs of civilisation, from the side of the 

 Pacific, begin to be numerous, and, from Ega down- 

 wards, the improvement is felt from the side of the 

 Atlantic. 



