When he visited me at night he used to knock at my shutters in a manner we had agreed on, it being necessary to guard against admitting drunken neighbours, and we then spent the long evenings most pleasantly, working and conversing.His manners were courteous, and his talk well worth listening to, for the shrewdness and good sense of his remarks.I first met Mestre Chico at the house of an old negress of Para, Tia Rufina (Aunt Rufina), who used to take charge of my goods when I was absent on a voyage, and this affords me an opportunity of giving a few further instances of the excellent qualities of free negroes in a country where they are not wholly condemned to a degrading position by the pride or selfishness of the white race.This old woman was born a slave, but, like many others in the large towns of Brazil, she had been allowed to trade on her own account, as market-woman, paying a fixed sum daily to her owner, and keeping for herself all her surplus gains.In a few years she had saved sufficient money to purchase her freedom, and that of her grown-up son.This done, the old lady continued to strive until she had earned enough to buy the house in which she lived, a considerable property situated in one of the principal streets.When Ireturned from the interior, after seven years' absence from Para, I found she was still advancing in prosperity, entirely through her own exertions (being a widow) and those of her son, who continued, with the most regular industry, his trade as blacksmith, and was now building a number of small houses on a piece of unoccupied land attached to her property.I found these and many other free negroes most trustworthy people, and admired the constancy of their friendships and the gentleness and cheerfulness of their manners towards each other.They showed great disinterestedness in their dealings with me, doing me many a piece of service without a hint at remuneration; but this may have been partly due to the name of Englishman, the knowledge of our national generosity towards the African race being spread far and wide amongst the Brazilian negroes.
I remained at St.Paulo five months; five years would not have been sufficient to exhaust the treasures of its neighbourhood in Zoology and Botany.Although now a forest-rambler of ten years'
experience, the beautiful forest which surrounds this settlement gave me as much enjoyment as if I had only just landed for the first time in a tropical country.The plateau on which the village is built extends on one side nearly a mile into the forest, but on the other side the descent into the lowland begins close to the streets; the hill sloping abruptly towards a boggy meadow surrounded by woods, through which a narrow winding path continues the slope down to a cool shady glen, with a brook of icy-cold water flowing at the bottom.At mid-day the vertical sun penetrates into the gloomy depths of this romantic spot, lighting up the leafy banks of the rivulet and its clean sandy margins, where numbers of scarlet, green, and black tanagers and brightly-coloured butterflies sport about in the stray beams.Sparkling brooks, large and small, traverse the glorious forest in almost every direction, and one is constantly meeting, while rambling through the thickets, with trickling rills and bubbling springs, so well-provided is the country with moisture.Some of the rivulets flow over a sandy and pebbly bed, and the banks of all are clothed with the most magnificent vegetation conceivable.Ihad the almost daily habit, in my solitary walks, of resting on the clean banks of these swift-flowing streams, and bathing for an hour at a time in their bracing waters; hours which now remain among my most pleasant memories.The broad forest roads continue, as I was told, a distance of several days' journey into the interior, which is peopled by Tucunas and other Indians, living in scattered houses and villages nearly in their primitive state, the nearest village lying about six miles from St.Paulo.The banks of all the streams are dotted with palm-thatched dwellings of Tucunas, all half-buried in the leafy wilderness, the scattered families having chosen the coolest and shadiest nooks for their abodes.
I frequently heard in the neighbourhood of these huts, the "realejo" or organ bird (Cyphorhinus cantans), the most remarkable songster, by far, of the Amazonian forests.When its singular notes strike the ear for the first time, the impression cannot be resisted that they are produced by a human voice.Some musical boy must be gathering fruit in the thickets, and is singing a few notes to cheer himself.The tones become more fluty and plaintive; they are now those of a flageolet, and notwithstanding the utter impossibility of the thing, one is for the moment convinced that somebody is playing that instrument.No bird is to be seen, however closely the surrounding trees and bushes may be scanned, and yet the voice seems to come from the thicket close to one's ears.The ending of the song is rather disappointing.It begins with a few very slow and mellow notes, following each other like the commencement of an air; one listens expecting to hear a complete strain, but an abrupt pause occurs, and then the song breaks down, finishing with a number of clicking unmusical sounds like a piping barrel organ out of wind and tune.I never heard the bird on the Lower Amazon, and very rarely heard it even at Ega; it is the only songster which makes an impression on the natives, who sometimes rest their paddles whilst travelling in their small canoes, along the shady by-streams, as if struck by the mysterious sounds.
