NEGRO SOLDIERS. 



273 



iments to the commander that we would remain by trie rocky island in 

 the middle of the river until he read a letter from the Brazilian minister 

 plenipotentiary in Bolivia, which I sent him by the negro sergeant. 

 Two old bald-headed negroes came, by order of the commander, to in- 

 quire if we had any cases of smallpox on board, saying, if not, the com- 

 mander invited us to land at the fort. One of these negroes, fully 

 supplied with smiles and white teeth, was the surgeon of the post ; the 

 other, with broken spectacles, was the armorer, who, together, seemed 

 to be the health officers of the post. We had never seen people quite 

 so black. 



As we landed, a young negro lieutenant in the emperor's army came 

 to meet me, and offered, in the most polite manner, to escort me to a 

 house in town. There was a shed in sight on the bank, which was the 

 guard-house. As we passed, there was so much pulling at white trou- 

 sers and blue jackets, it was evident the negro soldiers had been hur- 

 riedly dressed ; the officers had their hair curled extra. While they 

 respectfully saluted Uncle Sam's uniform, we noticed, for the first time, 

 how very awkwardly the negro handles the musket. As we rose upon 

 the forty-feet bank there stood the fort, pierced for fifty-six heavy guns, 

 pointing in all directions towards a perfect wilderness. The view down 

 the river as well as up is very impressive. The soldiers wear leather 

 slippers, and a hat manufactured wedge-shape, probably that the rays 

 of the vertical sun may be split as they fall upon the negro head. 



Some paces north of the fort were a few wretched little negro huts, 

 in which the wives of the soldiers lived," and where a part of the force 

 was permitted to sleep, by turns, during the night. One of these huts 

 was offered to us ; it contained one table and two chairs ; was built of 

 cane, plastered with adobe, tile roof, with rat-holes in the corners of the 

 floor. The chairs were set out at the door, and Senor Commandante Don 

 Pedro Luis Pais de Carvalho came to pay us a visit. He was a thiD, 

 middle-sized, dark-complexioned Brazilian, above fifty years of age, ex- 

 ceedingly mild and gentlemanly in manners ; at once apologized for the 

 general order throughout the empire, prohibiting the commanders of all 

 fortifications from inviting a foreigner inside the walls ; he said that the 

 president of the province of Matto Grasso, under whose jurisdiction the 

 Forte do Principe da Beira was, had instructed him to be careful the 

 smallpox was not introduced among the soldiers from the department 

 of the Beni, which was the cause of our being requested not to land. 

 I told him we were anxious to go from the fort down the Madeira river, 

 and asked his opinion of the practicability of making the journey. He said 

 the president of the province at Cuyaba, the capital, who was a French 

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