OUR CREW 



147 



by the heavy sea in the crowded montaria, got all aboard 

 by nine o'clock. We made all sail amidst the ' adeos ' 

 shouted to us by Indian and mulatto sweethearts from 

 the top of the bank, and, tide and wind being favourable, 

 were soon miles away. 



Our crew consisted, as already mentioned, of twelve 

 persons. One was a young Portuguese from the pro- 

 vince of Traz os Montes, a pretty sample of the kind of 

 emigrants which Portugal sends to Brazil. He was two 

 or three and twenty years of age, and had been about 

 two years in the country, dressing and living like the 

 Indians, to whom he was certainly inferior in manners. 

 He could not read and write, whereas one at least of our 

 Tapuyos had both accomplishments. He had a little 

 wooden image of Nossa Senhora in his rough wooden 

 clothes chest, and to this he always had recourse when 

 any squall arose, or when we got aground on a shoal. 

 Another of our sailors was a tawny white of Cameta ; the 

 rest vv^ere Indians, except the cook, who was a Cafuzo, 

 or half-breed between the Indian and negro. It is often 

 said that this class of mestizos is the most evilly-disposed 

 of all the numerous crosses between the races inhabiting 

 Brazil ; but Luiz was a simple, good-hearted fellow, al- 

 ways ready to do one a service. The pilot was an old 

 Tapuyo of Para, with regular oval face and well-shaped 

 features. I was astonished at his endurance. He never 

 quitted the helm night or day, except for two or three 

 hours in the morning. The other Indians used to bring 

 him his coffee and meals, and after breakfast one of 

 them relieved him for a time, when he used to lie down 

 on the quarter-deck and get his two hours' nap. The 

 Indians forward had things pretty much their own way. 

 No system of watches was followed ; when any one was 

 so disposed, he lay down on the deck and went to sleep ; 

 but a feeling of good fellowship seemed always to exist 

 amongst them. One of them was a fine specimen of 

 the Indian race : a man very little short of six feet high, 

 with remarkable breadth of shoulder and full muscular 

 chest. His comrades called him the commandant, on 

 account of his having been one of the rebel leaders when 

 the Indians and others took Santarem in 1835. They 

 related of him that, when the legal authorities arrived 

 with an armed flotilla to recapture the town, he was one 

 of the Jast to quit, remaining in the little fortress which 



