Across Unknown South America

by Arnold Henry Savage Landor

I explained to the poor woman that it required very civilized people to appreciate her son's music. Among the wild Indians I expected to find, later on in my journey, I was sure that with music like that, we should all be killed; they were such savages!

After two solid hours—and the two chords still continuing, with no signs whatever of relenting—I asked the musical genius if he could treat me to a different tune. Alas! he knew no other, but as he saw that I was so fond of music he would again, with the greatest pleasure, go on playing the same air—he called it an air.

"Muito obrigado! (Thank you very much!)" I moaned, with a sickly smile on my lips and a violent internal wish to smash guitar and guitarist.

"No hai de que! (Do not mention it!)" and here recommenced the repetition of the two chords.

"I should like to go to sleep now; thank you very much again for the lovely music," I next plaintively added, in my most approved Brazilian politeness.

"Oh, not at all: I shall go on playing while you are sleeping. It will give you pleasant dreams!"

It was too pathetic. Nothing short of murder could have stopped his enthusiasm. Being a traveller of years' experience, I was not to be outwitted. As he would not stop the music, I stopped hearing it by stuffing my ears tight with cotton-wool. So I slept soundly enough, notwithstanding the orchestral entertainment. At sunrise, when I opened my eyes again, the boy was still at it. I removed the cotton from my ears ... yes, indeed, the identical two chords!

The boy and the guitar will perhaps never know what a narrow escape they both had! In despair I gave orders to get the mules ready at once in order to depart immediately.

Those halts in farmhouses were dreary beyond words. The Brazilians of the interior—quite unlike those of the big towns in or near the coast—were sullen people, with no conversation—or else too much—no interest in anything, no art, no imagination. They were timid and vain to an incredible degree, suspicious, avaricious, and easily offended, so that the greatest tact had to be used with them. They were ignorant of everything even in their own immediate neighbourhood. Yet, mind you, with all that, extraordinarily kind and ultra-polite of speech. They all seemed turned out of the same mould. When you had seen one you had seen them all. There were, of course, a few exceptions—Brazilians of recent German, French, Italian or Spanish origin—but these exceptions were indeed very rare in the interior.

Ill-fed, his blood corrupted and impoverished to the utmost degree—his health, therefore, never in a normal condition—his finances at the lowest ebb, the Brazilian of the interior had little indeed to make him happy. His home at best was as miserable and dirty as possible. The room generally given to an honoured guest—the best in the house—was the granary. More than once was my camp-bed perched on a mound of Indian corn. And the furniture? A wooden bench of the roughest description—really an instrument of torture rather than an article of comfort; a few wooden pegs in the wall for hanging rifles or other things; an occasional wooden bedstead; seldom, very seldom, a stool or a chair—in any case, never a comfortable one such as you invariably find with peasants and old-established colonists of most other countries. They cared not for comfort. Their beds, a mass of rags, were shared by masters and hens and dogs. Everything was in an abandoned state, everything had fallen to rack and ruin. All looked as if they were tired of life, too indolent to move. They seldom saluted when you met them on the trail, nor when you entered their houses; if they did, they rapidly touched their dilapidated hats as if afraid to spoil them. Never did you perceive a smile upon their long-drawn countenances. When they greeted one another they laid their bodies close together as if about to dance the tango, and patted each other repeatedly on the shoulder-blades, turning their heads away as if to avoid their reciprocal evil odour. It is not the fashion in any part of Brazil to shake hands. Some say it is because of the unpleasant feeling of touching sweating hands; others suggest that it is to prevent the contagion of the many skin complaints from which people suffer. When they do shake hands—with a stranger, for instance—one might as well be grasping the very dead hand of a very dead man; it is done in so heartless a manner.