FESTIVALS 



241 



and ill attended. There is a handsome church, but the 

 vicar showed remarkably little zeal for religion except for 

 a few days now and then when the Bishop came from 

 Para, on his rounds through the diocese. The people are 

 as fond of holiday making here as in other parts of the 

 province ; but it seemed to be a growing fashion to sub- 

 stitute rational amusements for the processions and 

 mummeries of the saints' days. The young folks are very 

 musical the piincipal instruments in use being the flute, 

 violin, Spanish guitar, and a small four-stringed viola, 

 called cavaquinho. During the early part of my stay 

 at Santarem, a little party of instrumentalists, led by a 

 tall, thin, ragged mulatto, who was quite an enthusiast in 

 his art, used frequently to serenade their friends in the 

 cool and brilliant moonlit evenings of the dry season, 

 playing French and Italian marches and dance music 

 with very good effect. The guitar was the favourite 

 instrument with both sexes, as at Para ; the piano, how- 

 ever, is now fast superseding it. The ballads sung to the 

 accompaniment of the guitar were not learnt from written 

 or printed music, but communicated orally from one friend 

 to another. They were never spoken of as songs, but 

 modinhas, or 'little fashions each of which had its day, 

 giving way to the next favourite brought by some young 

 fellow from the capital. At festival times there was a 

 great deal of masquerading, in which all the people, old 

 and young, white, negro, and Indian, took great delight. 

 The best things of this kind used to come off during the 

 Carnival, in Easter week, and on St. John's eve ; the 

 negroes having a grand semi-dramatic display in the 

 streets at Christmas time. The more select affairs were 

 got up by the young whites, and coloured men associating 

 with whites. A party of thirty or forty of these used to 

 dress themselves in uniform style, and in very good taste, 

 as cavaliers and dames, each disguised with a peculiar 

 kind of light gauze mask. The troop, with a party of 

 musicians, went the round of their friends' houses in the 

 evening, and treated the large and gaily-dressed companies 

 which were there assembled to a variety of dances. The 

 principal citizens, in the large rooms of whose houses 

 these entertainments were given, seemed quite to enjoy 

 them ; great preparations were made at each place ; 

 and, after the dance, guests and masqueraders were re- 

 galed with pale ale and sweetmeats. Once a year the 



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