第81章

There was another visitor besides ourselves, a negro, whom John Trinidade introduced to me as his oldest and dearest friend, who had saved his life during the revolt of 1835.I have, unfortunately, forgotten his name; he was a freeman, and had a sitio of his own situated about a day's journey from this.There was the same manly bearing about him that I had noticed with pleasure in many other free negroes; but his quiet, earnest manner, and the thoughtful and benevolent expression of his countenance, showed him to be a superior man of his class.He told me he had been intimate with our host for thirty years, and that a wry word had never passed between them.At the commencement of the disorders of 1835, he got into the secret of a plot for assassinating his friend, hatched by some villains whose only cause of enmity was their owing him money and envying his prosperity.It was such as these who aroused the stupid and brutal animosity of the Muras against the whites.The negro, on obtaining this news, set off alone in a montaria on a six hour journey in the dead of night to warn his "compadre" of the fate in store for him, and thus gave him time to fly.It was a pleasing sight to notice the cordiality of feeling and respect for each other shown by these two old men; for they used to spend hours together enjoying the cool breeze, seated under a shed which overlooked the broad river, and talking of old times.

John Trinidade was famous for his tobacco and cigarettes, as he took great pains in preparing the Tauari, or envelope, which is formed of the inner bark of a tree, separated into thin papery layers.Many trees yield it, among them the Courataria Guianensis and the Sapucaya nut-tree, both belonging to the same natural order.The bark is cut into long strips, of a breadth suitable for folding the tobacco; the inner portion is then separated, boiled, hammered with a wooden mallet, and exposed to the air for a few hours.Some kinds have a reddish colour and an astringent taste, but the sort prepared by our host was of a beautiful satiny-white hue, and perfectly tasteless.He obtained sixty, eighty, and sometimes a hundred layers from the same strip of bark.The best tobacco in Brazil is grown in the neighbourhood of Borba, on the Madeira, where the soil is a rich black loam; but tobacco of very good quality was grown by John Trinidade and his neighbours along this coast, on similar soil.It is made up into slender rolls, an inch and a half in diameter and six feet in length, tapering at each end.When the leaves are gathered and partially dried, layers of them, after the mid-ribs are plucked out, are placed on a mat and rolled up into the required shape.

This is done by the women and children, who also manage the planting, weeding, and gathering of the tobacco.The process of tightening the rolls is a long and heavy task, and can be done only by men.The cords used for this purpose are of very great strength.They are made of the inner bark of a peculiar light-wooded and slender tree, called Uaissima, which yields, when beaten out, a great quantity of most beautiful silky fibre, many feet in length.I think this might be turned to some use by English manufacturers, if they could obtain it in large quantity.

The tree is abundant on light soils on the southern side of the Lower Amazons, and grows very rapidly.When the rolls are sufficiently well pressed, they are bound round with narrow thongs of remarkable toughness, cut from the bark of the climbing Jacitara palm tree (Desmoncus macracanthus), and are then ready for sale or use.

It was very pleasant to roam in our host's cacaoal.The ground was clear of underwood, the trees were about thirty feet in height, and formed a dense shade.Two species of monkey frequented the trees, and I was told committed great depredations when the fruit was ripe.One of these, the macaco prego (Cebus cirrhifer?), is a most impudent thief; it destroys more than it eats by its random, hasty way of plucking and breaking the fruits, and when about to return to the forest, carries away all it can in its hands or under its arms.The other species, the pretty little Chrysothrix sciureus, contents itself with devouring what it can on the spot.A variety of beautiful insects basked on the foliage where stray gleams of sunlight glanced through the canopy of broad soft-green leaves, and numbers of an elegant, long-legged tiger beetle (Odontocheila egregia) ran and flew about over the herbage.

We left this place on the 8th of January, and on the afternoon of the 9th, arrived at Matari, a miserable little settlement of Mura Indians.Here we again anchored and went ashore.The place consisted of about twenty slightly-built mud-hovels, and had a most forlorn appearance, notwithstanding the luxuriant forest in its rear.A horde of these Indians settled here many years ago, on the site of an abandoned missionary station; and the government had lately placed a resident director over them, with the intention of bringing the hitherto intractable savages under authority.This, however, seemed to promise no other result than that of driving them to their old solitary haunts on the banks of the interior waters, for many families had already withdrawn themselves.The absence of the usual cultivated trees and plants gave the place a naked and poverty-stricken aspect.I entered one of the hovels where several women were employed cooking a meal.

Portions of a large fish were roasting over a fire made in the middle of the low chamber, and the entrails were scattered about the floor, on which the women with their children were squatted.