4 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



been placed on board, when, previous to my taking leave of the 

 officers and their families, I was called to the door by a visitor — 

 one of my convicts. He stood barefooted and uncovered, his 

 warped, reddish-brown hat held in his left hand behind him, his 

 coarse shirt of dirty cotton cloth hung, in the customary fashion, 

 outside his coarse trousers, and these were rolled half-way up his 

 bare, brown legs. He laid his right forearm across his forehead 

 like a timid child, and when asked, " And what is it, Feliciano ? " 

 he said : " My patron, pardon me, eh ? but it is all I have. Here 

 are some squashes I have brought for your lordship to take back 

 to the world with you," and he pointed with his leather hat toward 

 six enormous squashes that lay upon the floor of the veranda, and 

 which he had brought during the night from a distant part of the 

 island. My embarrassment may be realized in some degree when 

 I say that I knew that, excepting only the clothes he wore, these 

 six squashes were the sum total of that poor fellow's earthly pos- 

 sessions. I knew, too, how serious an offense it would be to decline 

 his present, so there was nothing to be done but to accept it and 

 take his squashes " back to the world " with me. If the matter 

 had ended here, it would have caused me no serious inconvenience ; 

 but, before the steamer sailed, a whole wagon-load of squashes had 

 accumulated on the floor of the veranda, and all of them had to 

 be accepted and taken away. 



When the time for my embarkation had arrived, the officers 

 of the station accompanied me to the beach, where they bade me 

 farewell in that affectionate and touching manner so character- 

 istic of Brazilian gentlemen. After these had withdrawn, there 

 came about me seven men with rough clothing — what there was 

 of it — rough, hard hands, and hard faces. They stood uncovered, 

 and, without speaking a word, one after another held out to me a 

 thick, horny right hand. One of them then stooped and took me 

 on his back, and, wading out to the great raft, left me to be trans- 

 ferred to the steamer. That afternoon I saw this lofty, beautiful, 

 but sin-cursed Fernando sink slowly into the ocean ; and the last 

 sight I had of it was when, as the sun went down, it touched with 

 crimson and gold a cloud-banner that streamed away like a pen- 

 nant from the summit of its majestic peak.* 



* In view of what I have said of the moral condition of the convicts confined on this 

 island, it is but just that I should add that in the year following my visit, that is, in 1877 

 the Imperial Government of Brazil appointed a commission for the purpose of elaborating 

 a prison system for the country. The President of the Province of Pernambuco held out 

 to the Legislative Assembly of that province the hope that Fernando de Noronha would not 

 be overlooked by this commission. Said he, " The grave social, economic, and moral ques- 

 tions here involved will be settled." It is to be hoped, too, that the transfer of this penal 

 colony from the Department of War to that of Justice will also be conducive to a better 

 prison system. 



