I30 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
found on the floor, and it had been fashioned for 
the purpose out of a piece of old hoop, beaten into 
the shape of a dagger, with a sharp point three 
inches long. Some blacksmith had evidently been 
at work, and the handle was an old file-handle, such 
as the smiths of Santarem were wont to use. The 
magistrates examined all the smiths in the town, 
but to none of them could the file-handle or the 
making of the knife be traced. Suspicion attached 
to a young blacksmith — a mulatto or Zambo — who 
was undergoing a term of imprisonment in the fort 
for an assault, and was in the habit of bribing the 
sentry to allow him to go out of a night and visit 
his wife. He was out on the night of the attempt 
on Mr. Hislop's life, and was met in the streets early 
in the morning by a policeman, who took him into 
custody. There was other circumstantial evidence 
of his having been both the fabricator of the knife 
and the assassin ; but it was considered insufficient to 
authorise even his being apprehended on suspicion, 
and so the affair was allowed to drop, although all 
Santarem was convinced of his guilt. 
The circumstances that in all probability led to 
this murderous assault are briefly these. Not 
many days previously Captain Hislop was paying 
a mulatto girl for sweets she had sold him the sum 
of one milreis (2s. 4d. sterling). He wished to 
give her a bank-note of that value, and he took out 
of a trunk a little tin box containing his paper- 
money, wrapped up in small parcels — the one-milreis 
notes separate from those of higher value. He set 
the box on the table, and taking out of it a parcel 
of notes, went up to the window to see if they were 
of the value he wanted, for it was in the dusk of 
