The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866

When we arrived, with the exception of the benches I have mentioned and a few of the low wooden stools roughly cut out of a single piece of wood and common in every sitio, this room was empty; but immediately a number of hammocks, of various color and texture, were brought and slung across the room from side to side, between the poles supporting the roof, and we were invited to rest. This is the first act of hospitality on arriving at a country-house here; and the guests are soon stretched in every attitude of luxurious ease. After we had rested, the gentlemen went down to the igarapé to bathe, while the senhora and her daughter, a very pretty Indian woman, showed me over the rest of the establishment. She had the direction of everything now; for the master of the house was absent, having a captain's commission in the army; and I heard here the same complaints which meet you everywhere in the forest settlements, of the deficiency of men on account of the recruiting. The room I have described stood on one side of a cleared and neatly swept ground, around which, at various distances, stood a number of little thatched houses,—casinhas, as they call them,—consisting mostly only of one room. But beside these there was one larger house, with mud walls and floor, containing two or three rooms, and having a wooden veranda in front. This was the senhora's private establishment. At a little distance farther down on the hill was the mandioca kitchen, with several large ovens, troughs, etc. Nothing could be neater than the whole area of this sitio; and while we were there, two or three black girls were sent out to sweep it afresh with their stiff twig brooms. Around was the plantation of mandioca and cacao, with here and there a few coffee-shrubs. It is difficult to judge of the extent of these sitio plantations, because they are so irregular, and comprise such a variety of trees,—mandioca, coffee, cacao, and often cotton, being planted pellmell together. But every sitio has its plantation, large or small, of one or other or all of these productions.

On the return of the gentlemen from the igarapé, we took leave, though very kindly pressed to stay and breakfast. At parting, the senhora presented me with a wicker-basket of fresh eggs, and some abacatys, or alligator pears, as we call them. We reached the house just in time for a ten-o'clock breakfast, which assembled all the different parties once more from their various occupations, whether of work or play. The sportsmen returned from the forest, bringing a goodly supply of toucans, papagaios, and paroquets, with a variety of other birds; and the fishermen brought in treasures again for Mr. Agassiz.

After breakfast I retired to the room where we had passed the night, hoping to find a quiet time for writing up letters and journal. But it was already occupied by the old senhora and her guests, lounging about in the hammocks or squatting on the floor and smoking their pipes. The house was, indeed, full to overflowing, as the whole party assembled for the ball were to stay during the President's visit. In this way of living it is an easy matter to accommodate any number of people; for if they cannot all be received under the roof, they are quite as well satisfied to put up their hammocks under the trees outside. As I went to my room the evening before, I stopped to look at quite a pretty picture of an Indian mother with her two little children asleep on either arm, all in one hammock, in the open air.

My Indian friends were too much interested in my occupations to allow of my continuing them uninterruptedly. They were delighted with my books, (I happened to have Bates's "Naturalist on the Amazons" with me, in which I showed them some pictures of Amazonian scenery and insects,) and asked me many questions about my country, my voyage, and my travels here. In return, they gave me much information about their own way of life. They said the present gathering of neighbors and friends was no unusual occurrence; for they have a great many festas which, though partly religious in character, are also occasions of great festivity. These festas are celebrated at different sitios in turn, the saint of the day being carried, with all his ornaments, candles, bouquets, etc., to the house where the ceremony is to take place, and where all the people of the the village congregate. Sometimes they last for several days, and are accompanied by processions, music, and dances in the evening. But the women said the forest was very sad now, because their men had all been taken as recruits, or were seeking safety in the woods. The old senhora told me a sad story of the brutality exercised in recruiting the Indians. She assured me that they were taken wherever they were caught, without reference to age or circumstances, often having women and children dependent upon them; and, if they made resistance, were carried off by force, frequently handcuffed, or with heavy weights attached to their feet. Such proceedings are entirely illegal; but these forest villages are so remote, that the men employed to recruit may practise any cruelty without being called to account for it. If they bring in their recruits in good condition, no questions are asked. These women assured me that all the work of the sitios—the making of farinha, the fishing, the turtle-hunting—was stopped for want of hands. The appearance of things certainly confirms this, for one sees scarcely any men about in the villages, and the canoes one meets are mostly rowed by women.

I must say that the life of the Indian woman, so far as we have seen it, and this is by no means the only time that we have been indebted to Indians for hospitality, seems to me enviable in comparison with that of the Brazilian lady in the Amazonian towns. The former has a healthful out-of-door life; she has her canoe on the lake or river, and her paths through the forest, with perfect liberty to come and go; she has her appointed daily occupations, being busy not only with the care of her house and children, but in making farinha or tapioca, or in drying and rolling tobacco, while the men are fishing and turtle-hunting; and she has her frequent festa days to enliven her working life. It is, on the contrary, impossible to imagine anything more dreary and monotonous than the life of the Brazilian senhora in any of the smaller towns. In the northern provinces, especially, old Portuguese notions about shutting women up and making their home-life as colorless as that of a cloistered nun, without even the element of religious enthusiasm to give it zest, still prevail. Many a Brazilian lady passes day after day without stirring beyond her four walls, scarcely even showing herself at the door or window; for she is always in a careless dishabille, unless she expects company. It is sad to see these stifled existences; without any contact with the world outside, without any charm of domestic life, without books or culture of any kind, the Brazilian senhora in this part of the country either sinks contentedly into a vapid, empty, aimless life, or frets against her chains, and is as discontented as she is useless.

On the day of our arrival the dinner had been interrupted by the entrance of the Indians with their greetings and presents of game to the President; but on the second day it was enlivened by quite a number of appropriate toasts and speeches. I thought, as we sat around the dinner-table, there had probably never before been gathered under the palm-roof of an Indian house on the Amazons a party combining so many different elements and objects. There was the President, whose interest is, of course, in administering the affairs of the province, in which the Indians come in for a large share of his attention;—there was the young statesman, whose whole heart is in the great national question of peopling the Amazonian region and opening it to the world, and in the effect this movement is to have upon his country;—there was the able engineer, whose scientific life has been passed in surveying the great river and its tributaries with a view to their future navigation;—and there was the man of pure science, come to study the distribution of animal life in their waters, with no view to practical questions. The speeches touched upon all these interests, and were received with enthusiasm, each one closing with a toast and music, for our little band of the night before had been brought in to enliven the scene. The Brazilians are very happy in their after-dinner speeches, and have great facility in them, whether from a natural gift or from much practice. The habit of drinking healths and giving toasts is very general throughout the country; and the most informal dinner among intimate friends does not conclude without some mutual greetings of this kind.

As we were sitting under the trees afterwards, having yielded our places in the primitive dining-room to the Indian guests, the President suggested a sunset row on the lake. The hour and the light were most tempting; and we were soon off in the canoe, taking no boatmen, the gentlemen preferring to row themselves. We went through the same lovely region, half water, half land, over which we had passed in the morning, floating between patches of greenest grass, and large forest-trees, and blackened trunks standing out of the lake like ruins. We did not go very fast nor very far, for our amateur boatmen found the evening warm, and their rowing was rather play than work; they stopped, too, every now and then, to get a shot at a white heron or into a flock of paroquets or ciganas, whereby they wasted a good deal of powder to no effect. As we turned to come back, we were met by one of the prettiest sights I have ever seen. The Indian women, having finished their dinner, had taken the little two-masted canoe, dressed with flags, which had been prepared for the President's reception, and had come out to meet us. They had the music on board, and there were two or three men in the boat; but the women were some twelve or fifteen in number, and seemed, like genuine Amazons, to have taken things into their own hands. They were rowing with a will; and as the canoe drew near, with music playing and flags flying, the purple lake, dyed in the sunset and smooth as a mirror, gave back the picture. Every tawny figure at the oars, every flutter of the crimson and blue streamers, every fold of the green and yellow national flag at the prow, was as distinct below the surface as above it. The fairy boat, for so it looked floating between glowing sky and water, and seeming to borrow color from both, came on apace, and as it approached our friends greeted us with many a Viva! to which we responded as heartily. Then the two canoes joined company, and we went on together, taking the guitar sometimes into one and sometimes into the other, while Brazilian and Indian songs followed each other. Anything more national, more completely imbued with tropical coloring and character, than this evening scene on the lake, can hardly be conceived. When we reached the landing, the gold and rose-colored clouds were fading into soft masses of white and ashen gray, and moonlight was taking the place of sunset. As we went up the green slope to the sitio, a dance on the grass was proposed, and the Indian girls formed a quadrille; for thus much of outside civilization has crept into their native manners, though they throw into it so much of their own characteristic movements that it loses something of its conventional aspect. Then we returned to the house, where while here and there groups sat about on the ground laughing and talking, and the women smoking with as much enjoyment as the men. Smoking is almost universal among the common women here, nor is it confined to the lower classes. Many a senhora, at least in this part of Brazil, (for one must distinguish between the civilization upon the banks of the Amazons and in the interior, and that in the cities along the coast,) enjoys her pipe while she lounges in her hammock through the heat of the day.

The following day the party broke up. The Indian women came to bid us good by after breakfast, and dispersed in various directions, through the forest paths, to their several homes, going off in little groups, with their babies, of whom there were a goodly number, astride on their hips, and the older children following. Mr. Agassiz passed the morning in packing and arranging his fishes, having collected in these two days more than seventy new species: such is the wealth of life everywhere in these waters. His studies had been the subject of great curiosity to the people about the sitio; one or two were always hovering around to look at his work, and to watch Mr. Bourkhardt's drawing. They seemed to think it extraordinary that any one should care to take the portrait of a fish. The familiarity of these children of the forest with the natural objects about them—plants, birds, insects, fishes—is remarkable. They frequently ask to see the drawings, and, in turning over a pile containing several hundred colored drawings of fish, they will scarcely make a mistake; even the children giving the name instantly, and often adding, "He filho d'elle,"—"It is the child of such a one,"—thus distinguishing the young from the adult, and pointing out their relation. The scientific work excites great wonder among the Indians, wherever we go; and when Mr. Agassiz succeeds in making them understand the value he attaches to his collections, he often finds them efficient assistants.

We dined rather earlier than usual,—our chief dish being a stew of parrots and toucans,—and left the sitio at about five o'clock, in three canoes, the music accompanying us in the smaller boat. Our Indian friends stood on the shore as we left, giving us a farewell greeting with cheers and waving hats and hands. The row through the lake and igarapé was delicious; and we saw many alligators lying lazily about in the quiet water, who seemed to enjoy it, after their fashion, as much as we did. The sun had long set as we issued from the little river, and the Rio Negro, where it opens broadly out into the Amazons, was a sea of silver. The boat with the music presently joined our canoe; and we had a number of the Brazilian modinhas, as they call them,—songs which seem especially adapted for the guitar and moonlight. These modinhas have quite a peculiar character. They are little, graceful, lyrical snatches of song, with a rather melancholy cadence; even those of which the words are gay not being quite free from this undertone of sadness. One hears them constantly sung to the guitar, a favorite instrument with the Brazilians as well as the Indians. This put us all into a somewhat dreamy mood, and we approached the end of our journey rather silently. But as we came toward the landing, we heard the sound of a band of brass instruments, effectually drowning our feeble efforts, and saw a crowded canoe coming towards us. They were the boys from an Indian school in the neighborhood of Manaos, where a certain number of boys of Indian parentage, though not all of pure descent, receive an education at the expense of the province, and are taught a number of trades. Among other things, they are trained to play on a variety of instruments, and are said to show a remarkable facility for music. The boat, which, from its size, was a barge rather than a canoe, looked very pretty as it came towards us in the moonlight; it seemed full to overflowing, the children all standing up, dressed in white uniforms. This little band comes always on Sunday evenings and festa days to play before the President's house. They were just returning, it being nearly ten o'clock; but the President called to them to turn back, and they accompanied us to the beach, playing all the while. Thus our pleasant three-days picnic ended with music and moonlight.

DOCTOR JOHNS

XLIX

At about the date of this interview which we have described as having taken place beyond the seas,—upon one of those warm days of early winter, which, even in New England, sometimes cheat one into a feeling of spring,—Adèle came strolling up the little path that led from the parsonage gate to the door, twirling her muff upon her hand, and thinking—thinking—But who shall undertake to translate the thought of a girl of nineteen in such moment of revery? With the most matter of fact of lives it would be difficult. But in view of the experience of Adèle, and of that fateful mystery overhanging her,—well, think for yourself,—you who touch upon a score of years, with their hopes,—you who have a passionate, clinging nature, and only some austere, prim matron to whom you may whisper your confidences,—what would you have thought, as you twirled your muff, and sauntered up the path to a home that was yours only by sufferance, and yet, thus far, your only home?

The chance villagers, seeing her lithe figure, her well-fitting pelisse, her jaunty hat, her blooming cheeks, may have said, "There goes a fortunate one!" But if the thought of poor Adèle took one shape more than another, as she returned that day from a visit to her sweet friend Rose, it was this: "How drearily unfortunate I am!" And here a little burst of childish laughter breaks on her ear. Adèle, turning to the sound, sees that poor outcast woman who had been the last and most constant attendant upon Madame Arles coming down the street, with her little boy frolicking beside her. Obeying an impulse she was in no mood to resist, she turns back to the gate to greet them; she caresses the boy; she has kindly words for the mother, who could have worshipped her for the caress she has given to her outcast child.

"I likes you," says the sturdy urchin, sidling closer to the parsonage gate, over which Adèle leans. "You's like the French ooman."

Whereupon Adèle, in the exuberance of her kindly feelings, can only lean over and kiss the child again.

Miss Johns, looking from her chamber, is horrified. Had it been summer, she would have lifted her window and summoned Adèle. But she never forgot—that exemplary woman—the proprieties of the seasons, any more than other proprieties; she tapped upon the glass with her thimble, and beckoned the innocent offender into the parsonage.

"I am astonished, Adèle!"—these were her first words; and she went on to belabor the poor girl in fearful ways,—all the more fearful because she spoke in the calmest possible tones. She never used others, indeed; and it is not to be doubted that she reckoned this forbearance among her virtues.

Adèle made no reply,—too wise now for that; but she winced, and bit her lip severely, as the irate spinster "gave Miss Maverick to understand that an intercourse which might possibly be agreeable to her French associations could never be tolerated at the home of Dr. Johns. For herself, she had a reputation for propriety to sustain; and while Miss Maverick made a portion of her household, she must comply with the rules of decorum; and if Miss Maverick were ignorant of those rules, she had better inform herself."

No reply, as we have said,—unless it may have been by an impatient stamp of her little foot, which the spinster could not perceive.

But it is the signal, in her quick, fiery nature, of a determination to leave the parsonage, if the thing be possible. From her chamber, where she goes only to arrange her hair and to wipe off an angry tear or two, she walks straight into the study of the parson.

"Doctor," (the "New Papa" is reserved for her tenderer or playful moments now,) "are you quite sure that papa will come for me in the spring?"

"He writes me so, Adaly. Why?"

Adèle seeks to control herself, but she cannot wholly. "It's not pleasant for me any longer here, New Papa,—indeed it is not";—and her voice breaks utterly.

"But, Adaly!—child!" says the Doctor, closing his book.

"It's wholly different from what it once was; it's irksome to Miss Eliza,—I know it is; it's irksome to me. I want to leave. Why doesn't papa come for me at once? Why shouldn't he? What is this mystery, New Papa? Will you not tell me?"—and she comes toward him, and lays her hand upon his shoulder in her old winning, fond way. "Why may I not know? Do you think I am not brave to bear whatever must some day be known? What if my poor mother be unworthy? I can love her! I can love her!"

"Ah, Adaly," said the parson, "whatever may have been her unworthiness, it can never afflict you more; I believe that she is in her grave, Adaly."

Adèle sunk upon her knees, with her hands clasped as if in prayer. Was it strange that the child should pray for the mother she had never seen?

From the day when Maverick had declared her unworthiness, Adèle had cherished secretly the hope of some day meeting her, of winning her by her love, of clasping her arms about her neck and whispering in her ear, "God is good, and we are all God's children!" But in her grave! Well, at least justice will be done her then; and, calmed by this thought, Adèle is herself once more,—earnest as ever to break away from the scathing looks of the spinster.

The Doctor has not spoken without authority, since Maverick, in his reply to the parson's suggestions respecting marriage, has urged that the party was totally unfit, to a degree of which the parson himself was a witness, and by further hints had served fully to identify, in the mind of the old gentleman, poor Madame Arles with the mother of Adèle. A knowledge of this fact had grievously wounded the Doctor; he could not cease to recall the austerity with which he had debarred the poor woman all intercourse with Adèle upon her sick-bed. And it seemed to him a grave thing, wherever sin might lie, thus to alienate the mother and daughter. His unwitting agency in the matter had made him of late specially mindful of all the wishes and even caprices of Adèle,—much to the annoyance of Miss Eliza.

"Adaly, my child, you are very dear to me," said he; and she stood by him now, toying with those gray locks of his, in a caressing manner which he could never know from a child of his own,—never. "If it be your wish to change your home for the little time that remains, it shall be. I have your father's authority to do so."

"Indeed I do wish it, New Papa";—and she dropped a kiss upon his forehead,—upon the forehead where so few tender tokens of love had ever fallen, or ever would fall. Yet it was very grateful to the old gentleman, though it made him think with a sigh of the lost ones.

The Doctor talked over the affair with Miss Eliza, who avowed herself as eager as Adèle for a change in her home, and suggested that Benjamin should take counsel with his old friend, Mr. Elderkin; and it is quite possible that she shrewdly anticipated the result of such a consultation.

Certain it is that the old Squire caught at the suggestion in a moment.

"The very thing, Doctor! I see how it is. Miss Eliza is getting on in years; a little irritable, possibly,—though a most excellent person, Doctor,—most excellent! and there being no young people in the house, it's a little dull for Miss Adèle, eh, Doctor? Grace, you know, is not with us this winter; so your lodger shall come straight to my house, and she shall take the room of Grace, and Rose will be delighted, and Mrs. Elderkin will be delighted; and as for Phil, when he happens with us,—as he does only off and on now,—he'll be falling in love with her, I haven't a doubt; or, if he doesn't, I shall be tempted to myself. She's a fine girl, eh, Doctor?"

"She's a good Christian, I believe," said the Doctor gravely.

"I haven't a doubt of it," said the Squire; "and I hope that a bit of a dance about Christmas time, if we should fall into that wickedness, wouldn't harm her on that score,—eh, Doctor?"

"I should wish, Mr. Elderkin, that she maintain her usual propriety of conduct, until she is again in her father's charge."

"Well, well, Doctor, you shall talk with Mrs. Elderkin of that matter."

So, it is all arranged. Miss Johns expresses a quiet gratification at the result, and—it is specially agreeable to her to feel that the responsibility of giving shelter and countenance to Miss Maverick is now shared by so influential a family as that of the Elderkins. Rose is overjoyed, and can hardly do enough to make the new home agreeable to Adèle; while the mistress of the house—mild, and cheerful, and sunny, diffusing content every evening over the little circle around her hearth—wins Adèle to a new cheer. Yet it is a cheer that is tempered by many sad thoughts of her own loneliness, and of her alienation from any motherly smiles and greetings that are truly hers.

Phil is away at her coming; but a week after he bursts into the house on a snowy December night, and there is a great stamping in the hall, and a little grandchild of the house pipes from the half-opened door, "It's Uncle Phil!" and there is a loud smack upon the cheek of Rose, who runs to give him welcome, and a hearty, honest grapple with the hand of the old Squire, and then another kiss upon the cheek of the old mother, who meets him before he is fairly in the room,—a kiss upon her cheek, and another, and another, Phil loves the old lady with an honest warmth that kindles the admiration of poor Adèle, who, amid all this demonstration of family affection, feels herself more cruelly than ever a stranger in the household,—a stranger, indeed, to the interior and private joys of any household.

Yet such enthusiasm is, somehow, contagious; and when Phil meets Adèle with a shake of the hand and a hearty greeting, she returns it with an outspoken, homely warmth, at thought of which she finds herself blushing a moment after. To tell truth, Phil is rather a fine-looking fellow at this time,—strong, manly, with a comfortable assurance of manner,—a face beaming with bonhomie, cheeks glowing with that sharp December drive, and a wild, glad sparkle in his eye, as Rose whispers him that Adèle has become one of the household. It is no wonder, perhaps, that the latter finds the bit of embroidery she is upon somewhat perplexing, so that she has to consult Rose pretty often in regard to the different shades, and twirl the worsteds over and over, until confusion about the colors shall restore her own equanimity. Phil, meantime, dashes on, in his own open, frank way, about his drive, and the state of the ice in the river, and some shipments he had made from New York to Porto Rico,—on capital terms, too.

"And did you see much of Reuben?" asks Mrs. Elderkin.

"Not much," and Phil (glancing that way) sees that Adèle is studying her crimsons; "but he tells me he is doing splendidly in some business venture to the Mediterranean with Brindlock; he could hardly talk of anything else. It's odd to find him so wrapped up in money-making."

"I hope he'll not be wrapped up in anything worse," said Mrs. Elderkin, with a sigh.

"Nonsense, mother!" burst in the old Squire; "Reuben'll come out all right yet."

"He says he means to know all sides of the world, now," says Phil, with a little laugh.

"He's not so bad as he pretends to be, Phil," answered the Squire. "I knew the Major's hot ways; so did you, Grace (turning to the wife). It's a boy's talk. There's good blood in him."

And the two girls,—yonder, the other side of the hearth,—Adèle and Rose, have given over their little earnest comparison of views about the colors, and sit stitching, and stitching, and thinking—and thinking—