MISSION VILLAGE 



305 



so difficult of domestication. I do not know what arts 

 the old woman used : Captain Antonio said she fed it 

 with her saliva. The chief reason why almost all animals 

 become so wonderfully tame in the houses of the natives 

 is, I believe, their being treated with uniform gentleness, 

 and allowed to run at large about the rooms. Our Mara- 

 cana used to accompany us sometimes in our rambles, 

 one of the lads carrying it on his head. One day, in the 

 middle of a long forest road, it was missed, having clung 

 probably to an overhanging bough and escaped into the 

 thicket without the boy perceiving it. Three hours after- 

 wards, on our return by the same path, a voice greeted 

 us in a colloquial tone as we passed ' Maracana ! ' We 

 looked about for some tim.e, but could not see anything 

 until the word was repeated with emphasis * Maracana-a ! ' 

 when we espied the little truant half concealed in the 

 foliage of a tree. He came down and delivered himself 

 up evidently as much rejoiced at the meeting as we were. 



After I had obtained the two men promised, stout 

 young Indians, 17 or 18 years of age, one named Ricardo 

 and the other Alberto, I paid a second visit to the western 

 side of the river in my own canoe ; being determined, if 

 possible, to obtain specimens of the White Cebus. We 

 crossed over first to the mission village, Santa Cruz. It 

 consists of 30 or 40 wretched-looking mud huts, closely 

 built together in three straight ugly rows on a high 

 gravelly bank. The place was deserted with the exception 

 of two or three old men and women and a few children. 

 The missionary, Fre Isidro, an Italian monk, was away 

 at another station called Wishituba, two days* journey 

 farther up the river. Report said of him that he had no 

 zeal for religion or devotion to his calling, but was occupied 

 in trading, using the Indian proselytes to collect salsa- 

 parilla and so forth, with a view to making a purse where- 

 with to retire to his own country. The semi-civilized 

 Indians, who speak the Tupi language, called him Pai 

 tucura, or Father Grasshopper : his peaked hood having 

 a droll resemblance to the pointed head of the insect. I 

 afterwards became acquainted with Fre Isidoro, and found 

 him a man of superior intelligence and ability. He com- 

 plained much of the ill treatment the Indians received 

 at the hands of traders and the Brazilian civil authorities, 

 and said that he and his predecessors had incessantly to 

 contend for the rights secured to the aborigines by the 



u 



