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Processions headed by long-robed priests with flambeaux and crucifixes; young girls in light costumes and long white cotton shawls, selling sweet cakes of mandioca flour, and bonbons; swarthy Brazilians, some in white jackets, loose cotton drawers, and straw hats, others in brown leather boots and ponchos; Negroes in short white drawers and shirts, besides many without any clothing above their waists; Indians from the interior, copper-coloured, and some of them, fine-looking men, having only a strip of cloth about their loins; such were the strange crew whose loud voices added to the whiz of rockets, squibs, crackers, guns, and musical instruments, created a deafening noise.
After the deportation of their third Monarch, the Brazilians settled down to enjoy the advantages of an ideal and much-exalted Republican Government; but it was not long before they encountered some sharp disillusions.
It is curious to compare the difference of ear with which nations hear the cries of animals, and form their onomatopoetic, or "bow-wow" imitations. For instance, the North Americans express by "whip-poor-will" what the Brazilians call "Joao-corta-pao." The Guinea fowl may have been the "Afraa avis;"but that was a dear luxury amongst the Romans, though the Greek meleagris was cheap.
This excellent man was a favourable specimen of the highest class of native Brazilians. He had been educated in Europe, was now a member of the Brazilian Parliament, and had been twice president of his native province.His manners were less formal, and his goodness more thoroughly genuine, perhaps, than is the rule generally with Brazilians.
However, a couple of English frigates had come into Rio, and hearing what had happened had gone out to chase them. They hadn't caught them, and the Brazilians thought that they had shifted their quarters and gone for a cruise in other latitudes. "'The description they gave of them answered to these two a brig and a schooner, with low hulls and tall spars.
White egrets were plentiful at the edge of the water, and hummingbirds, in some places, were whirring about the flowers overhead. The desolate appearance of the landscape increased after sunset, when the moon rose in mist. This upper river, the Alto-Amazonas, or Solimoens, is always spoken of by the Brazilians as a distinct stream.
Pedro, Lourenço, José and the inexplicable Rand came slashing and clubbing a path of their own to the beleaguered Scot the Brazilians cutting straight ahead with deadly surety, the painted Peruvian chopping and thrusting with a fixed grin, Rand swinging the gun butt down on head after head. From still another direction Yuara and his satellite came boring in with spears snatched from dead hands.
When the Brazilians made their flag they took for it a square of green the colour of the green beetle's coat. Within this square they placed a diamond of gold like the golden lights which play upon the green beetle's back. Then, within the diamond, they drew a circle to represent the round earth and they coloured it blue like the coat of the blue beetle.
"So, even after Collier was kidnapped out of the way by the revolt of his appetite, my own prospects with Mame didn't seem to be improved. And then business played out in Guthrie. "I had stayed too long there. The Brazilians I had sold commenced to show signs of wear, and the Kindler refused to light up right frequent on wet mornings.
The account given in the same narrative of the manners of the inhabitants is sufficiently curious to be repeated. "The Brazilians are not Christians," he says, "but no more are they idolaters, for they worship nothing; natural instinct is their only law."
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