The Botocudo Indians make an incision in the under lip, which becomes so distended that they insert in the orifice a round piece of wood, as large as the top of a common-sized tumbler-glass; the lobe of the ear is also perforated and elongated, in order to receive a similar ornament. In height they are about 5 feet 6 inches, and have quite an independent bearing and ar de franqueza.
The Indians, like the Greeks of the Homeric age, deem it the greatest of evils to be unburied, and therefore they delight in making flutes and trumpets of their enemies’ bones. I have seen some of these flutes of the present day: they contain about four or five holes; and are sometimes ornamented with tufts of red and yellow feathers attached to the bone by strings.
The market is a most curious place, and I am told by persons who have travelled in Africa, that it has a thoroughly African appearance. Amongst heaps of fruit, vegetables, &c., shaded by mats, some of which are formed into huts, and others merely propped up by sticks, are seated the black women, in dresses of many diversified colours, but all of the same fashion. Some with their infants slung across their backs, and tied by the pano da Costa; others with heavy baskets of fruit or vegetables on their head; little children, whose only articles of clothing are bracelets, ear-rings, and bands of coral beads round the body, squat on a wooden dish, like an Indian god, or sprawl amidst fowls, ducks, &c. Here and there you see a black girl in her holiday attire, her hands covered with rings, and her neck adorned with chains of solid gold, which she is constantly displaying by arranging her shawl. In this part of the market the boxes of papadura, attended by the taberoá, in his leather jacket and hat; the half-naked qaubadomes busy with unloading and loading, and the different and absolutely gorgeous colours of the fruit, vegetables, and dresses, form a most brilliant picture. The constant chatter of talking, the screaming of parrots, the laughter of the women, and sometimes the serious talk, added to which the procession of the Espiritu Santo, accompanied by its band of music, the ringing of the church bells, and the constant firing of rockets, constitute a perfect Babel of sounds. The dark shades are the dusky sons of Ethiop themselves, the dirty buildings, and the still dirtier streets; but a busier, gayer, or more amusing scene will seldom be found.
This is the land of parasite plants; a thousand different kinds of these vagaries of nature are here. Some, attached to the branches of trees, derive sustenance therefrom and from the air; others form a nucleus with their roots for dead leaves, decayed wood, &c., and flourish; others, again, merely rest upon the branches, and live on air alone. Every curiosity of form is to be seen: some of the flowers like flies; others of indescribable shapes; many with their flowers filled with water, which thus becomes scented; a dozen different varieties on one tree; some of most brilliant colours, others shades of green alone; some long and pendant, one variety of which has received the name of the ‘rat’s tail;’ some without leaves, like nothing but a string, wave with every wind until they reach the ground, where they become fixed and rooted.
The bread-fruit tree is very beautiful; but is not very common in this place, its use being superseded by farinha. The leaves are very large, of a bright green colour, and much indented at the edges. The fruit is green, and the surface has the appearance of network. There are two varieties: in one kind the divisions of the fruit’s surface are raised pyramidally, in the other they are smooth. The latter is the sort used for food, it having no seeds. Roasted and eaten with butter and salt it is palatable, but insipid; and here it is usually planted for ornament, as it grows quickly, and makes a pleasing variety among other trees. The coffee is another very beautiful plant; when in blossom, the long, glossy, dark green leaves present a pleasing contrast to the clusters of white flowers round the stem, and it exhales a delicious fragrance. When the berries arrive at maturity, they are of a dusky red colour; each contains two grains of coffee, surrounded by a soft pulp, which soon dries after being plucked, and is then removed. The labour of picking is very slight, and children can with great ease be thus employed. The cultivation of the coffee-plant is much more attended to in this province than formerly, and is gradually taking the place of sugar. Towards the south a good deal is cultivated for exportation.
The mantis is a very curious insect, which Rondelet, the naturalist, says is called indifferently devin and prega diou, or preché dieu, in consequence of having their fore-feet extended as if preaching or praying. The Latin name of mantis signifies ‘diviner,’ and supposed to have been so designated from the motion they make with their fore-feet; and it was imagined that they could divine or indicate events. The fore-feet are used by the insect to carry food to its mouth; it is of a beautiful green colour. In one of the Idylls of Theocritus the term mantis is used to designate a thin young girl with slender and elongated arms.—See Griffith’s Edition of ‘Cuvier’s Animal Kingdom.’
The banana is a plant about twelve feet high, having a stem similar to bulbous plants in general, and the leaves, many of them two feet wide, and from twelve to fourteen feet long, springing from the top. The new leaf rises from the centre, and is rolled up straight; as it increases in length, it gradually unfolds, and gives way for another. The fruit is green, and grows round the stem in regular semi-circular groups. The blossoms are protected by a thick fleshy leaf-like covering, which rises to allow the sun to have its full influence in maturing the fruit. When the blossoms drop off, the half-circles remain, but it is seldom that more than six or eight rows of bananas are produced, and each smaller than the preceding. The juices of the plant gradually lose their nutritious qualities, and there are numerous rows of abortive flowers, which produce nothing; and the stem is terminated by a mass of the fleshy leaves enclosing embryo bananas never to be matured. The plant is generally cut down when the fruit has attained its full size, to make it shoot for the next season, and the fruit is hung up to ripen, which it soon does, when it becomes of a fine yellow colour.
The sunsets here are sometimes very fine, and I have noticed that when the twilight is hastening on, a brighter glow will appear, with very vivid and distinct bands of blue and pink, alternately shaded off into each other, and radiating from the spot when the sun has gone down. The difference in the apparent sunset is about half-an-hour between winter and summer. Bright as the sky is by day, it is brighter far by night, when the spangled heavens are spread out like a curtain. The air is so pure that the stars seem to shine with an increasing brightness. The Southern Cross is a beautiful object, and so different are the heavens from the northern hemisphere, that nothing seems to produce the effect of the long distance from home so much as the difference of the starry constellations. The Milky Way seems to have received fresh refulgence; and all is magnificence.
The small black ants found in gardens, generally in great numbers, are the most annoying of the species; their bite produces a burning pain, which must be partly the effect of poison, and continues for some time. The red ants very soon strip the foliage off trees, which they are constantly ascending and descending, one party empty, the other loaded; a third party remains in the tree, cutting away whole leaves, so that it is no unusual thing to be passing under a tree, and to see the leaves falling as it were miraculously. A fourth party is employed cutting them up into proper sizes for carrying to their nests. Most of these ants, if squeezed between the fingers, emit a strong smell of lemon. Rose-buds seem to be their most favourite food, and gardens here suffer extremely from their ravages.