Chap. YI. 
CHRISTMAS. 
389 
house, in the style of middle-class dwellings of towns, 
namely, with brick floors and tiled roof, the bricks and 
tiles having been brought from Para, 1500 miles dis- 
tant, the nearest place where they are manufactured in 
surplus. When Senhor Justo visited me he was much 
struck with the engravings in a file of ''Illustrated 
London News," which lay on my table. It was impos- 
sible to resist his urgent entreaties to let him have 
some of them '' to look at," so one day he carried off a 
portion of the papers on loan. A fortnight afterwards, 
on going to request him to return them, I found the 
engravings had been cut out, and stuck all over the 
newly whitewashed walls of his chamber, many of them 
upside down. He thought a room thus decorated with 
foreign views would increase his importance amongst 
his neighbours, and when I yielded to his wish to keep 
them, was boundless in demonstrations of gratitude, end- 
ing by shipping a boat-load of turtles for my use at Ega. 
These neglected and rude villagers still retained 
many religious practices which former missionaries or 
priests had taught them. The ceremony which they 
observed at Christmas, like that described as practised 
by negroes in a former chapter, was very pleasing for 
its simplicity, and for the heartiness with which it was 
conducted. The church was opened, dried, and swept 
clean a few days before Christmas-eve, and on the 
morning all the women and children of the village were 
busy decorating it with festoons of leaves and wild 
flowers. Towards midnight it was illuminated inside 
and out with little oil lamps, made of clay, and the 
image of the " menino Deus," or Child-God, in its cradle, 
