i6o THE LOWER AMAZONS 



towns on the river. The houses are all roofed with tiles, 

 and are mostly of substantial architecture. The in- 

 habitants, at least at the time of my first visit, were 

 naive in their ways, kind and sociable. Scarcely any 

 palm-thatched huts are to be seen, for very few Indians 

 now reside here. It was one of the early settlements 

 of the Portuguese, and the better class of the population 

 consists of old-established white families, who exhibit 

 however, in some cases, traces of cross with the Indian 

 and negro. Obydos and Santarem have received, during 

 the last eighty years, considerable importations of negro 

 slaves ; before that time a cruel traffic was carried on 

 in Indians for the same purpose of forced servitude, but 

 their numbers have gradually dwindled away, and Indians 

 now form an insignificant element in the population of 

 the district. Most of the Obydos townsfolk are owners 

 of cacao plantations, which are situated on the low 

 lands in the vicinity. Some are large cattle proprietors, 

 and possess estates of many square leagues' extent in 

 the campo, or grass-land districts, which border the Lago 

 Grande, and other similar inland lakes, near the villages 

 of Faro and Alemquer. These campos bear a crop of 

 nutritious grass ; but in certain seasons, when the rising 

 of the Amazons exceeds the average, they are apt to be 

 flooded, and then the large herds of half-wild cattle 

 suffer great mortality from drowning, hunger, and the 

 alligators. Neither in cattle-keeping nor cacao-growing 

 are any but the laziest and most primitive methods 

 followed, and the consequence is, that the proprietors 

 are generally poor. A few, however, have become rich 

 by applying a moderate amount of industry and skill 

 to the management of their estates. People spoke of 

 several heiresses in the neighbourhood whose wealth was 

 reckoned in oxen and slaves ; a dozen slaves and a few 

 hundred head of cattle being considered a great fortune. 

 Some of them I saw had already been appropriated by 

 enterprising young men, who had come from Para and 

 Maranham to seek their fortunes in this quarter. 



The few weeks I spent here passed away pleasantly. 

 I generally spent the evenings in the society of the towns- 

 people, who associated together (contrary to Brazilian 

 custom) in European fashion ; the different families 

 meeting at one another's houses for social amusement, 

 bachelor friends not being excluded, and the whole com- 



