Amongst the principal residents must also be mentioned the civil and military authorities, who are generally well-bred and intelligent people from other provinces.Few Indians live in the place; it is too civilised for them, and the lower class is made up (besides the few slaves) of half-breeds, in whose composition negro blood predominates.Coloured people also exercise the different handicrafts; the town supports two goldsmiths, who are mulattoes, and have each several apprentices; the blacksmiths are chiefly Indians, as is the case generally throughout the province.The manners of the upper class (copied from those of Para) are very stiff and formal, and the absence of the hearty hospitality met with in other places, produces a disagreeable impression at first.Much ceremony is observed in the intercourse of the principal people with each other, and with strangers.The best room in each house is set apart for receptions, and visitors are expected to present themselves in black dress coats, regardless of the furious heat which rages in the sandy streets of Santarem towards midday, the hour when visits are generally made.In the room a cane-bottomed sofa and chairs, all lacquered and gilded, are arranged in quadrangular form, and here the visitors are invited to seat themselves, while the compliments are passed, or the business arranged.In taking leave, the host backs out his guests with repeated bows, finishing at the front door.Smoking is not in vogue amongst this class, but snuff-taking is largely indulged in, and great luxury is displayed in gold and silver snuff-boxes.All the gentlemen, and indeed most of the ladies also, wear gold watches and guard chains.Social parties are not very frequent; the principal men being fully occupied with their business and families, and the rest spending their leisure in billiard and gambling rooms, leaving wives and daughters shut up at home.Occasionally, however, one of the principal citizens gives a ball.In the first that I attended, the gentlemen were seated all the evening on one side of the room, and the ladies on the other, and partners were allotted by means of numbered cards, distributed by a master of the ceremonies.But the customs changed rapidly in these matters after steamers began to run on the Amazons (in 1853), bringing a flood of new ideas and fashions into the country.The old, bigoted, Portuguese system of treating women, which stifled social intercourse and wrought endless evils in the private life of the Brazilians, is now being gradually, although slowly, abandoned.
The religious festivals were not so numerous here as in other towns, and when they did take place, were very poor and ill attended.There is a handsome church, but the vicar showed remarkably little zeal for religion, except for a few days now and then when the Bishop came from Para on his rounds through the diocese.The people are as fond of holiday-making here as in other parts of the province; but it seemed to be a growing fashion to substitute rational amusements for the processions and mummeries of the saints' days.The young folks are very musical, the principal instruments in use being the flute, violin, Spanish guitar, and a small four-stringed viola, called cavaquinho.
During the early part of my stay at Santarem, a little party of instrumentalists, led by a tall, thin, ragged mulatto, who was quite an enthusiast in his art, used frequently to serenade their friends in the cool and brilliant moonlit evenings of the dry season, playing French and Italian marches and dance music with very good effect.The guitar was the favourite instrument with both sexes, as at Para; the piano, however, is now fast superseding it.The ballads sung to the accompaniment of the guitar were not learned from written or printed music, but communicated orally from one friend to another.They were never spoken of as songs, but modinas, or "little fashions," each of which had its day, giving way to the next favourite brought by some young fellow from the capital.
At festival times there was a great deal of masquerading, in which all the people, old and young, white, negro, and Indian, took great delight.The best things of this kind used to come off during the Carnival, in Easter week, and on St.John's Eve; the negroes having a grand semi-dramatic display in the streets at Christmas time.The more select affairs were got up by the young whites, and coloured men associating with whites.A party of thirty or forty of these used to dress themselves in uniform style, and in very good taste, as cavaliers and dames, each disguised with a peculiar kind of light gauze mask.The troop, with a party of musicians, went the round of their friends'
