54 



PARA 



ness or antipathy of race, cannot comprehend why they 

 are not allowed to compel Indians to work for them, 

 seeing that they will not do it of their own accord. The 

 inevitable result of the conflict of interests between a 

 European and a weaker indigenous race, when the two 

 come in contact, is the sacrifice of the latter. In the 

 Para district, the Indians are no longer enslaved, but they 

 are deprived of their lands, and this they feel bitterly, 

 as one of them, an industrious and worthy man, related 

 to me. Is not a similar state of things now exhibited 

 in New Zealand, between the Maoris and the English 

 colonists ? It is interesting to read of the bitter contests 

 that were carried on from the year 1570 to 1759, between 

 the Portuguese immigrants in Brazil, and the Jesuit 

 and other missionaries. They were similar to those w^hich 

 have recently taken place in South Africa, between the 

 Boers and the English missionaries, but they were on a 

 much larger scale. The Jesuits, as far as I could glean 

 from tradition and history, were actuated by the same 

 motives as our missionaries ; and they seemed like them 

 to have been, in great measure, successful in teaching 

 the pure and elevated Christian morality to the simple 

 natives. But the attempt was vain to protect the weaker 

 race from the inevitable ruin which awaited it in the 

 natural struggle with the stronger one ; which, although 

 calling itself Christian, seemed to have stood in need 

 of missionary instruction quite as much as the natives 

 themselves. In 1759, the white colonists finally pre- 

 vailed, the Jesuits were forced to leave the country, 

 and the 51 happy mission villages went to ruin. Since 

 then, the aboriginal race has gone on decreasing in numbers 

 under the treatment which it has received ; it is now, 

 as I have already stated, protected by the laws of the 

 central government. 



On our second visit to the mills, we stayed ten days. 

 There is a large reservoir and also a natural lake near the 

 place both containing aquatic plants, whose leaves rest 

 on the surface like our water lilies, but they are not so 

 elegant as our nymphaea, either in leaf or flower. On the 

 banks of these pools grow quantities of a species of fan- 

 leaved palm-tree, the Carana, whose stems are surrounded 

 by whorls of strong spines. I sometimes took a montaria, 

 and paddled myself alone down the creek. One day I 

 got upset, and had to land on a grassy slope leading to 



