1850.] 
FREI JOZE. 
229 
ulcerated ; yet he still delighted in recounting the feats 
of his youth, and was celebrated as the most original 
and amusing story-teller in the province of Para. He 
was carried up the hill, from the river-side, in a ham- 
mock ; and took a couple of days to rest, before he com- 
menced his ecclesiastical operations. I often went with 
Senhor L. to visit him, and was always much amused 
with his inexhaustible fund of anecdotes ; he seemed 
to know everybody and everything in the Province, 
and had always something humorous to tell about them. 
His stories were, most of them, disgustingly coarse; 
but so cleverly told, in such quaint and expressive lan- 
garge, and with such amusing imitations of voice and 
manner, that they were irresistibly ludicrous. There is 
always, too, a particular charm in hearing good anecdotes 
in a foreign language. The point is the more interest- 
ing, from the obscure method of arriving at it ; and the 
knowledge you acquire of the various modes of using 
the peculiar idioms of the language, causes a pleasure 
quite distinct from that of the story itself. Prei Joze 
never repeated a story twice, in the week he was with us ; 
and Senhor L., who has known him for years, says lie 
had never before heard many of the anecdotes he now 
related. He had been a soldier, then a friar in a con- 
vent, and afterwards a parish priest : he told tales of 
his convent life, just like what we read in Chaucer of 
their doings in his time. Don Juan was an innocent 
compared with Prei Joze; but he told us he had a 
great respect for his cloth, and never did anything dis- 
reputable - — during the day! 
At length the baptisms took place : there were some 
