88 
VOYAGE UP THE TAPAJOS. 
Chap. II. 
pression of countenance, came forth through the tangled 
maze of bushes, armed with a long knife, with which he 
pretended to be whittling a stick. He directed us to 
the house of Cypriano, which was about a mile distant 
along another forest road. The circumstance of the 
Cafuzo coming out armed to receive visitors very much 
astonished my companions, who talked it over at every 
place we visited for several days afterwards ; the freest 
and most unsuspecting welcome in these retired places 
being always counted upon by strangers. But, as Ma- 
noel remarked, the fellow may have been one of the 
unpardoned rebel leaders who had settled here after 
the recapture of Santarem in 1836, and lived in fear of 
being enquired for by the authorities of Santarem. After 
all our trouble we found Cypriano absent from home. 
His house was a large one, and full of people, old and 
young, women and children, all of whom were Indians 
or mamelucos. Several smaller huts surrounded the 
large dwelling, besides extensive open sheds containing 
mandioca ovens and rude wooden mills for grinding 
sugar-cane to make molasses. All the buildings were 
embosomed in trees : it would be scarcely possible to 
find a more retired nook, and an air of contentment was 
spread over the whole establishment. Cypriano's wife, 
a good-looking mameluco girl, was superintending the 
packing of farinha. Two or three old women, seated on 
mats, were making baskets with narrow strips of bark 
from the leaf-stalks of palms, whilst others were occu- 
pied lining them with the broad leaves of a species of 
maranta, and filling them afterwards with farinha, which 
was previously measured in a rude square vessel It 
