LIFE AT CARIPI 



115 



murmur, which lulled me to sleep at night, and seemed 

 appropriate music in those midday hours when all nature 

 was pausing breathless under the rays of a vertical sun. 

 Here I spent my first Christmas-day in a foreign land. 

 The festival was celebrated by the negroes of their own 

 free will and in a very pleasing manner. The room next 

 to the one I had chosen was the capella, or chapel. It 

 had a little altar which was neatly arranged, and the 

 room was furnished with a magnificent brass chandelier. 

 Men, women, and children were busy in the chapel all 

 day on the 24th of December decorating the altar with 

 flowers and strewing the floor with orange-leaves. They 

 invited some of their neighbours to the evening prayers, 

 and when the simple ceremony began an hour before 

 midnight, the chapel was crowded. They were obliged 

 to dispense with the mass, for they had no priest ; the 

 service therefore consisted merely of a long litany and 

 a few hymns. There was placed on the altar a small 

 image of the infant Christ, the * Menino Deos ' as they 

 called it, or the child-god, which had a long ribbon de- 

 pending from its waist. An old white-haired negro led 

 off the litany, and the rest of the people joined in the 

 responses. After the service was over they all went up 

 to the altar, one by one, and kissed the end of the ribbon. 

 The gravity and earnestness shown throughout the pro- 

 ceedings were remarkable. Some of the hymns were 

 very simple and beautiful, especially one beginning 

 * Virgem soberana a trace of whose melody springs to 

 my recollection whenever I think on the dreamy solitude 

 of Caripi. 



The next day after I arrived two blue-eyed and red- 

 haired boys came up and spoke to me in English, and 

 presently their father made his appearance. They proved 

 to be a German family named Petzell, who were living 

 in the woods, Indian fashion, about a mile from Caripi. 

 Petzell explained to me how he came here. He said 

 that thirteen years aga he came to Brazil with a number 

 of other Germans under engagement to serve in the 

 Brazilian army. When his time had expired he came 

 to Para to see the country, but after a few months' 

 rambling left the place to establish himself in the United 

 States. There he married, went to Illinois, and settled 

 as farmer near St. Louis. He remained on his farm 

 seven or eight years, and had a family of five children. 



