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The mission-house was inhabited by only two or three old monks, and from them they learned that there had been a bad outbreak of fever there, several had died, and the rest were so weakened that it had been determined that the monks, with the exception of these men, who had passed through many fevers and were thoroughly acclimatized, should go down by boat to Barra, and remain there until the season of the floods terminated and the sun had dried the inundated country.
In these they sailed towards Maracaibo, where they found "a poor distressed old man, who was sick." This old man told them that the Castle de la Barra, which guarded the entrance to the Gulf, had been mounted with great guns and manned by a strong garrison. Outside the channel were three Spanish men-of-war with their guns run out and decks cleared for battle.
With this intention, provided with a descriptive sketch of the country, a pocket compass, and the sagacity and instinct of their black boy, they started for Barra Warra, a station distant about fifty miles; which was centrally situated, and from whence there was a postman's track to Brompton.
We lingered in the solitude and drank the moonbeams as they strayed through disjointed rocks and fell silvery and glowing on our path. Our reverie ended in a mistake, for we unconsciously passed the point where we should turn to Gougane Barra, then the scene of a ceremony, half religious, half superstitious, as it has been during the autumn season from time immemorial.
The Conquistador Paulo Dias de Novaes, a grandson of Bartholomeo Dias, was sent a second time, in A.D. 1575, to treat with the king of "Dongo," who caused trouble to trade. Accompanied by 700 Portuguese, he reached the Cuanza River, coasted north, and entered by the Barra de Corimba, then accessible to caravels.
When it was finished the Indian rolled three cigars, and when these were lighted, and three cups of excellent coffee made, Pita said: “Now, señor, in what way can I serve you?” “I want to go down the Amazon to the coast.” “It is a long journey, long and difficult; I have never been so far. The farthest point that I have reached has been Barra, where the Madeira falls into the Solimoes.”
Jacques Barra, executioner, for having tortured, twice, Jean de Lannoy, ten sous. "To the same, for having executed, by fire, said Lannoy, sixty sous. For having thrown his cinders into the river, eight sous." This was the treatment to which thousands, and tens of thousands, had been subjected in the provinces.
The industrious habits, fidelity, and mildness of disposition of the Passes, their docility and, it may be added, their personal beauty, especially of the children and women, made them from the first very attractive to the Portuguese colonists. They were, consequently, enticed in great number from their villages and brought to Barra and other settlements of the whites.
It is very poetical, and exhibits a striking proof how much all things depend upon comparison: for Barra, it seems, appeared to him so much worse than Sky, his natale solum , that he languished for its 'blessed mountains, and thought himself buried alive amongst barbarians where he was. My readers will probably not be displeased to have a specimen of this ode:
In those days, Olaf Feilan, her son's son, was a man full grown, and Aud was by then worn with great eld; she bade Onund know that she would have Olaf, her kinsman, married, and was fain that he should woo Aldis of Barra, who was cousin to Asa, whom Onund had to wife. Onund deemed the matter hopeful, and Olaf rode south with him.
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