Chap. II. 
SCARCITY OF FOOD. 
81 
tions. The village itself is a neglected, poverty-stricken 
place : the governor (Captain of Trabalhadores or Indian 
workmen) being an old, apathetic half-breed, who had 
spent all his life here. The priest was a most profligate 
character ; I seldom saw him sober ; he was a white, 
however, and a man of good ability. I may as well 
mention here, that a moral and zealous priest is a great 
rarity in this province : the only ministers of religion in 
the whole country who appeared sincere in their calling, 
being the Bishop of Para and the Vicars of Ega on 
the Upper Amazons and Obydos. The houses in the 
village swarmed with vermin ; bats in the thatch ; fire- 
ants (formiga de fogo) under the floors ; cockroaches 
and spiders on the walls. Very few of them had 
wooden doors and locks. Altar do Chao was originally 
a settlement of the aborigines, and was called Burari. 
The Indians were always hostile to the Portuguese, and 
during the disorders of 1835-6 joined the rebels in 
the attack on Santarem. Few of them escaped the 
subsequent slaughter, and for this reason there is now 
scarcely an old or middle-aged man in the place. As 
in all the semi-civilised villages where the original 
orderly and industrious habits of the Indian have been 
lost without anything being learnt from the whites to 
make amends, the inhabitants live in the greatest 
poverty. The scarcity of fish in the clear waters and 
rocky bays of the neighbourhood is no doubt partly the 
cause of the poverty and perennial hunger which 
reign here. When Ave arrived in the port our canoe 
was crowded with the half-naked villagers — men, 
women, and children, who came to beg each a piece of 
VOL. II. a 
