CHRISTMAS 



495 



had taught them. The ceremony which they observed 

 at Christmas, Uke that described as practised by negroes 

 in a former chapter, was very pleasing for its simpUcity, 

 and for the heartiness with which it was conducted. The 

 church was opened, dried, and swept clean a few days 

 before Christmas-eve, and on the morning all the women 

 and children of the village were busy decorating it with 

 festoons of leaves and wild flowers. Towards midnight 

 it was illuminated inside and out with little oil lamps, 

 made of clay, and the image of the * menino Deus,' or 

 Child-God, in its cradle, was placed below the altar, 

 which v/as lighted up with rows of wax candles, very 

 lean ones, but the best the poor people could aifford. 

 All the villagers assembled soon afterwards, dressed in 

 their best, the women with flowers in their hair, and a few 

 simple hymns, totally irrelevant to the occasion, but 

 probably the only ones known by them, were sung kneel- 

 ing ; an old half-caste, with black-spotted face, leading 

 off the tunes. This finished, the congregation rose, and 

 then marched in single file up one side of the church and 

 down the other, singing together a very pretty marching 

 chorus, and each one, on reaching the little image, stooping 

 to kiss the end of a ribbon which was tied round its waist. 

 Considering that the ceremony was got up of their own 

 free-will, and at considerable expense, I thought it spoke 

 well for the good intentions and simplicity of heart of 

 these poor, neglected villagers. 



I left Fonte Boa, for Ega, on the 25th of January, 

 making the passage by steamer, down the middle of the 

 current, in sixteen hours. The sight of the clean and 

 neat little town, with its open spaces, close-cropped grass, 

 broad lake, and white sandy shores, had a most exhilar- 

 ating effect, after my trip into the wilder parts of the 

 country. The district between Ega and Loreto, the first 

 Peruvian village on the river, is, indeed, the most remote, 

 thinly-peopled, and barbarous of the whole line of the 

 Amazons, from ocean to ocean. Beyond Loreto, signs of 

 civilization, from the side of the Pacific, begin to be numer- 

 ous, and, from Ega downwards, the improvement is felt 

 from the side of the Atlantic. 



September ^th, 1857. — Again embarked on the ' Taba- 

 tinga', this time for a longer excursion than the last, 

 namely to St. Paulo de Olivenca, a village higher up than 

 any I had yet visited, being 260 miles distant, in a straight 



