92 
WANDERINGS IN 
SECOND 
JOURNEY. 
others in the neighbourhood; there the Captain- 
General of Pernambuco resides during this time of 
merriment and joy. 
The traveller, who allots a portion of his time to 
peep at his fellow-creatures in their relaxations, and 
accustoms himself to read their several little histories 
in their looks and gestures as he goes musing on, 
may have full occupation for an hour or two every 
day at this season amid the variegated scenes around 
the pretty village of Monteiro. In the evening 
groups sitting at the door, he may sometimes see 
with a sigh how wealth and the prince’s favour 
cause a booby to pass for a Solon, and be reverenced 
as such, while perhaps a poor neglected Camoens 
stands silent at a distance, awed by the dazzling glare 
of wealth and power. Retired from the public road 
he may see poor Maria sitting under a palm-tree, 
with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on 
one side within her hand, weeping over her for¬ 
bidden bans. And as he moves on “ with wandering; 
step and slow,” he may hear a broken-hearted 
nymph ask her faithless swain,— 
“ How could you say my face was fair, 
And yet that face forsake ? 
How could you win my virgin heart, 
Yet leave that heart to break 1 ” 
One afternoon, in an unfrequented part not far 
from Monteiro, these adventures were near being 
brought to a speedy and a final close : six or seven 
blackbirds, with a white spot betwixt the shoulders, 
were making a noise, and passing to and fro on the 
lower branches of a tree in an abandoned, weed- 
