Brazil, the Amazons and the coast .. . one, but he differedfrom nearly all the Indians that I ever saw, in that he hadamassed a little propert)-; besides three or four good houses,he had a cacao plantation on the lowlands, and fifty or sixtycattle. His Curumii house was quite a triumph of ruralarchitecture : covered with palm-thatch, of course, and withearthen floor ; but it was very neatly built, and had threelarge rooms. The old fellow was rough, but good-hearted ;he made long excursions with me in the woods, and marvelledgreatly at my saving worthless stones and bugs. His wifewas a virago,
Brazil, the Amazons and the coast .. . one, but he differedfrom nearly all the Indians that I ever saw, in that he hadamassed a little propert)-; besides three or four good houses,he had a cacao plantation on the lowlands, and fifty or sixtycattle. His Curumii house was quite a triumph of ruralarchitecture : covered with palm-thatch, of course, and withearthen floor ; but it was very neatly built, and had threelarge rooms. The old fellow was rough, but good-hearted ;he made long excursions with me in the woods, and marvelledgreatly at my saving worthless stones and bugs. His wifewas a virago, and, like the rest of her class, had a soft side ;I used to mollify her with tobacco, but she steadily refused * Astrocaryum javari. thp: curua. 299 to let her daughters smoke ; said it was an expensive habit,which young women should not learn. The girls oftenbegged a pipeful on the sly, smoking it when their motherwas away. At Curumu and the neighboring settlements, I tried topick up canoemen for my projected trip to the Curua ; but,. An Indian Kitcnen. it was by no means easy to make up a crew. The river hasa very bad reputation for fevers and general sickliness ; notwithout cause, it must be said, though probably the ill isoverrated. The Indians go there readily enough to gatherBrazil-nuts, or to fish, but it is the free life that attracts them,and the possibility of large profits with successful , under another mans orders, has no such charm ;their experience is with the traders, who keep them in a con-dition of semi-servitude, and pay them but scantily in the 300 BRAZIL. end. At first I could not find a man to go with me. Aftera little, I began to speak of my expedition rather as a pleas-ure excursion, a tour of discovery, with plenty of fishing andturtle-hunting thrown in ; but even with these attractions Icould get only two men besides Pedro. One of these, Joao,was a dark cafiizo,^ a willing fellow, but apt to be sullen andpassionate whenever he thought I wa
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjectbrazild, bookyear1879
