166 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



About six or seven miles from Pernambuco stands a 

 pretty little village called Monteiro ; the river runs close 

 by it, and its rural beauties seem to surpass all others in 

 the neighbourhood ; there the Captain-General of Pernam- 

 buco resides during this time of merriment and joy. 



The traveller who allots a portion of his time to peep at 

 his fellow-creatures in their relaxations, and accustoms 

 himself to read their several little histories in their looks 

 and gestures as he goes musing on, may have full occupa- 

 tion for an hour or two every day at this season amid the 

 variegated scenes around the pretty village of Monteiro. 

 In the evening groups sitting at the door, he may some- 

 times see with a sigh how wealth and the prince's favour 

 cause a booby to pass for a Solon, and be reverenced as 

 such, while perhaps a poor neglected Camoens stands silent 

 at a distance, awed by the dazzling glare of wealth and 

 power. Eetired from the public road he may see poor 

 Maria sitting under a palm-tree, with her elbow in her lap, 

 and her head leaning on one side within her hand, weeping 

 over her forbidden bans. And as he moves on "with 

 wandering step and slow," he may hear a broken-hearted 

 nymph ask her faithless swain, 



" How could you say my face was fair, 



And yet that face forsake ? 

 How could you win my virgin heart, 

 Yet leave that heart to break ? " 



One afternoon, in an unfrequented part not far from 

 Monteiro, these adventures were near being brought to a 

 speedy and a final close : six or seven blackbirds, with a 

 white spot betwixt the shoulders, were making a noise, and 

 passing to and fro on the lower branches of a tree in an 

 abandoned, weed-grown, orange orchard. In the long grass 

 underneath the tree, apparently a pale green grasshopper 



