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In the evening, soon after moonrise, we stopped for wood at the little Brazilian town of Porto Martinho. There are about twelve hundred inhabitants. Some of the buildings were of stone; a large private house with a castellated tower was of stone; there were shops, and a post-office, stores, a restaurant and billiard-hall, and warehouses for matte, of which much is grown in the region roundabout.
Accordingly João de Castilho was summoned back from Belem and by 1528 had got to work. All these additions were made to the west of the existing buildings, and to make room for them Dom João had to buy several houses and gardens, which together formed a suburb called São Martinho, and some of which were the property of João de Castilho, who received for them 463$000 or about £100.
Inside the church itself is not very remarkable, having a nave and aisles with transepts and three vaulted chapels to the east, built very much in the same style as is the church at Leça do Balio, except that it has a fine west front, to be mentioned later, that the roof of the nave was knocked down by the Devil in 1548 in anger at the extreme piety of Frey Martinho de Santarem, one of the canons, and that many famous people, including Pedro Alvares Cabral, the discoverer of Brazil, are therein buried.
Higher up the country or lower, I cannot tell which, for the river winds in all directions, and the compass, from pointing our course as due north, glides over to northwest, west, southwest, and on one or two occasions, I believe, pointed due south we came to the first Brazilian town, Puerto Martinho, where we were obliged to stay a short time.
Knowing this laxity, we did not anticipate that our murderous fellow-traveller would have to suffer much for his crime. The News, of Rio Janeiro, recently said: "The punishment of a criminal who has any influence whatever is becoming one of the forgotten things." After leaving Puerto Martinho, the uniform flatness of the river banks changes to wild, mountainous country.
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