8 
SANTAEEM. 
Chap. T. 
here as in other parts of the province ; bnt it seemed 
to be a growing fashion to substitute rational amuse- 
ments for the processions and mummeries of the saints' 
days. The young folks are very musical, the prin- 
cipal instruments in use being the flute, violin, Spanish 
guitar, and a small four-stringed viola, called cava- 
quinho. During the early part of my stay at San- 
tarem, 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 dame's^ each 
