At the time of my visit there were few pure-blood Indians at Fonte Boa, and no true whites.The inhabitants seemed to be nearly all Mamelucos, and were a loose-living, rustic, plain-spoken and ignorant set of people.There was no priest or schoolmaster within 150 miles, and had not been any for many years: the people seemed to be almost without government of any kind, and yet crime and deeds of violence appeared to be of very rare occurrence.The principal man of the village, one Senor Justo, was a big, coarse, energetic fellow, sub-delegado of police, and the only tradesman who owned a large vessel running directly between Fonte Boa and Para.He had recently built a large 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 distant, the nearest place where they are manufactured in surplus.When Senor Justo visited me he was much struck with the engravings in a file of Illustrated London News, which lay on my table.It was impossible 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 among his neighbours, and when I yielded to his wish to keep them, was boundless in demonstrations of gratitude, ending 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, was placed below the altar, which was lighted up with rows of wax candles, very lean ones, but the best the poor people could afford.All the villagers assembled soon afterwards, dressed in their best, he women with flowers in their hair, and a few simple hymns, totally irrelevant to the occasion, but probably the only ones known by them, were sung kneeling; an old half-caste, with black-spotted face, leading off the tunes.This finished, the congregation rose, and then marched in single file up one side of the church and down the other, singing together a very pretty marching chorus, and each one, on reaching the little image, stooping to kiss the end of a ribbon which was tied round its waist.Considering that the ceremony was got up of their own free will, and at considerable expense, I thought it spoke well for the good intentions and simplicity of heart of these poor, neglected villagers.
I left Fonte Boa, for Ega, on the 25th of January, making the passage by steamer, down the middle of the current, in sixteen hours.The sight of the clean and neat little town, with its open spaces, close-cropped grass, broad lake, and white sandy shores, had a most exhilarating effect, after my trip into the wilder parts of the country.The district between Ega and Loreto, the first Peruvian village on the river, is, indeed, the most remote, thinly-peopled, and barbarous of the whole line of the Amazons, from ocean to ocean.Beyond Loreto, signs of civilisation, from the side of the Pacific, begin to be numerous, and, from Ega downwards, the improvement is felt from the side of the Atlantic.
September 5th, 1857--Again embarked on the Tabatinga, this time for a longer excursion than the last, namely to St.Paulo de Olivenca, a village higher up than any I had yet visited, being 260 miles distant, in a straight line, from Ega, or about 400miles following the bends of the river.
