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94 



MAN DING A. 



he thought this circumstance would be recorded 

 against him as one of his heaviest sins. 



One day the old man came to me with a face 

 of dismay, to show me a ball of leaves tied up 

 with cypo, which he had found under a couple 

 of boards, upon which he slept in an out-house; 

 for he had removed from the house of his friend 

 in the town to my place. The ball of leaves 

 was about the size of an apple. I could not 

 imagine what had caused his alarm, until he said 

 that it was mandinga, which had been set for 

 for the purpose of killing him ; and he bitterly 

 bewailed his fate, that at his age any one should 

 wish to hasten his death, and to carry him from 

 this world before our Lady thought fit to send 

 for him. I knew that two of the black women 

 were at variance ; and suspicion fell upon one 

 of them who was acquainted with the old man- 

 dingueiro of Engenho Velho, therefore she was 

 sent for. I judged that the mandinga was not 

 set for Apollinario, but for the negress whose 

 business it was to sweep the out-house. I 

 threatened to confine the suspected woman at 

 Pillar, and then to send her to Para, unless she 

 discovered the whole affair ; this she did, after 

 she heard me tell the manager to prepare to take 

 her to Pillar. She said that the mandinga was 

 placed there to make one of the negroes dislike 

 her fellow-slave and prefer her to the other. 

 The ball of mandinga was formed of five or six 



