178 



A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. 



names of the father and mother are Pedro Manuel and 

 Michelina. He is a tall, handsome fellow, whose chief 

 occupation seems to be that of standing about in pictu- 

 resque attitudes, and watching his rather pretty wife, as 

 she bustles round in her various work of grating or 

 pressing or straining the mandioca, generally with her 

 baby astride on her hip, — the Indian woman's favorite way 

 of carrying her child. Occasionally, however, Pedro Man- 

 uel is aroused to bear some part in the collecting ; and the 

 other day, when he brought in some specimens which seemed 

 to him quite valueless, Mr. Agassiz rewarded him with a 

 chicken. His surprise and delight were great, perhaps a 

 little mingled with contempt for the man who would barter 

 a chicken for a few worthless fishes, fit only to throw into 

 the river. 



Last evening, with some difficulty, we induced Laudig4ri 

 to play for us on a rough kind of lute or guitar, — a favorite 

 instrument with the country people, and used by them 

 as an accompaniment for dancing. When we had him 

 fairly en traifi with the music, we persuaded Esperanga 

 and Michelina to show us some of their dances ; not 

 without reluctance, and with an embarrassment which 

 savored somewhat of the self-consciousness of civilized life, 

 they stood up with two of our boatmen. The dance is 

 very peculiar ; so languid that it hardly deserves the name. 

 There is almost no movement of the body ; they lift the 

 arms, but in an angular position with no freedom of motion, 

 snapping the fingers like castanets in time to the music, 

 and they seem rather like statues gliding from place to 

 place than like dancers. This is especially true of the 

 women, who are still more quiet than the men. One of 

 the boatmen was a Bolivian, a finely formed, picturesque- 



