SOCIAL PARTIES 



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pany, married and single, joining in simple games. The 

 meetings used to take place in the sitting-rooms, and not 

 in the open verandahs — a fashion almost compulsory on 

 account of the mosquitoes ; but the evenings here are 

 very cool, and the closeness of a room is not so much felt 

 as it is in Para. Sunday was strictly observed at Obydos ; 

 at least all the shops are closed, and almost the whole 

 population went to church. The vicar, Padre Raimundo 

 do Sanchez Brito, was an excellent old man, and I fancy 

 the friendly manners of the people, and the general 

 purity of morals at Obydos, were owing in great part 

 to the good example he set to his parishioners. 



One day the owner of the house in which I occupied 

 a room. Major Martinho da Fonseca Seixas, came over 

 from his estate on the opposite bank of the river. He 

 was a man of great importance in the district, and the 

 only one who had had enterprise sufficient to establish a 

 sugar-mill. He crossed over soon after sunrise in a small 

 boat, with four dark-skinned paddlers, who made the 

 morning air ring with a wild chorus which their master, 

 I was told, always made them sing, to beguile the way. 

 I found him a tall, wiry, and sharp-featured old gentle- 

 man, with a shrewd but good-humoured expression of 

 countenance — quite a typical specimen, in fact, of the 

 old school of Brazilian planters. He landed in dressing- 

 gown and slippers, and came up the beach chattering, 

 scolding, and gesticulating. Several friends joined him, 

 and we soon had the house full of company. After 

 taking coffee and a hot buttered roll, he dressed and 

 went to mass, whilst I slipped off to spend an hour or 

 two in the woods. When I came back I found the Major 

 with his friends seated in hammocks, two by two, slung 

 in the four corners of the room, and all engaged in a 

 lively discussion on political questions. They had a 

 demijohn of casha9a in their midst, and were helping them- 

 selves freely, drinking out of little tea-cups. One of the 

 company was a dark-skinned Cametaense, named Senhor 

 Calisto Pantoja, a very agreeable fellow, and as full of 

 talk as the Major. Like most of his townsmen, he was 

 a Santa Luzia, or Liberal, whilst the old gentleman was 

 a rabid Tory. Pantoja rather nettled the old man hy 

 saying that the Cameta people had held their town 

 against the rebels in 1835, whilst the whites of Obydos 

 abandoned theirs to be pillaged by them. The Major 



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