io6 A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



looked very funereal. There was also a crowd of neigh- 

 bours and friends and slaves of the male sex, mostly in 

 their usual attire, while just before the service began the 

 female portion of the congregation came in from an inner 

 room. 



The chapel is a small niche off the hall, only large 

 enough to hold half a dozen people, so the doors were 

 thrown open and the congregation filled the hall. The 

 widow, daughters, and daughters-in-law did not appear ; 

 but there were a good many granddaughters, some of them 

 really pretty little girls, all shoeless, but in neat black cotton 

 gowns. A great many other young girls and women were 

 present, of all shades of complexion, dressed in the brightest 

 and gayest colours, and with flowers in their shining, well- 

 oiled, neatly braided black hair. Little niggers with only 

 a shirt on, and numerous dogs, rambled about among the 

 kneeling crowd during the whole service, which was very 

 quietly performed, the major's confessor being celebrant, 

 and Padre Francisco deacon. The chalice pall was violet, 

 but the chasuble was rather incongruous — I suppose it was 

 the only one at the fazenda — being of a stiff white silk, 

 braided with crimson flowers. 



It was a picturesque and touching sight. The small 

 dim chapel, with its painfully crude and barbaric carvings, 

 pictures, and gilt and tinsel ornaments, lighted up by six 

 tall tallow candles on the altar ; the priest in his white and 

 red chasuble ; the dark, dirty, and dilapidated hall, its mud 

 floor covered with worshippers ; the women surrounding the 

 chapel, a few sable garments being lighted up by the other 

 patches of bright colour ; the mass of men filling the rest 

 of the room, mostly rough, unkempt, unwashed, in many 

 styles of dress, some in huge riding-boots, others with spurs 

 on their bare feet, variety of colour and origin, some rich. 



