Travels on the Amazon. Alfred Russel Wallace
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Childhood is the animal part of man's existence, manhood the intellectual; and when the weakness and imbecility of childhood remain, without its simplicity and pureness, its grace and beauty, how degrading is the spectacle! And this is the state of the slave when slavery is the best that it can be. He has no care of providing food for his family, no provision to make for old age. He has nothing to incite him to labour but the fear of punishment, no hope of bettering his condition, no future to look forward to of a brighter aspect. Everything he receives is a favour; he has no rights,—what can he know therefore of duties? Every desire beyond the narrow circle of his daily labours is shut out from his acquisition. He has no intellectual pleasures, and, could he have education and taste them, they would assuredly embitter his life; for what hope of increased knowledge, what chance of any further acquaintance with the wonders of nature or the triumphs of art, than the mere hearing of them, can exist for one who is the property of another, and can never hope for the liberty of working for his own living in the manner that may be most agreeable to him?
But such views as these are of course too refined for a Brazilian slaveholder, who can see nothing beyond the physical wants of the slave. And as the teetotalers have declared that the example of the moderate drinker is more pernicious than that of the drunkard, so may the philanthropist consider that a good and kind slave-master does an injury to the cause of freedom, by rendering people generally unable to perceive the false principles inherent in the system, and which, whenever they find a suitable soil in the bad passions of man, are ready to spring up and produce effects so vile and degrading as to make honest men blush for disgraced human nature.
Senhor C. was as kind and good-tempered a man as I have ever met with. I had but to mention anything I should like, and, if it was in his power, it was immediately got for me. He altered his dinner-hour to suit my excursions in the forest, and made every arrangement he could for my accommodation. A Jewish gentleman called when I was there: he was going up the river to collect some debts, and brought a letter for Senhor C. He stayed with us some days, and, as he would not eat any meat, because it had not been killed according to the rules of his religion, nor any fish that had not scales, which include some of the best these rivers produce, he hardly found anything at table the first day that he could partake of. Every day afterwards, however, while he was with us, there was a variety of scaled fish provided, boiled and roasted, stewed and fried, with eggs, rice, and vegetables in abundance, so that he could always make an excellent meal. Senhor C. was much amused at his scruples, though perfectly polite about them, and delighted to ask him about the rites of his religion, and me about mine, and would then tell us the Catholic doctrine on the same questions. He related to us many anecdotes, of which the following is a specimen, serving to illustrate the credulity of the Negroes. "There was a Negro," said he, "who had a pretty wife, to whom another Negro was rather attentive when he had the chance. One day the husband went out to hunt, and the other party thought it a good opportunity to pay a visit to the lady. The husband, however, returned rather unexpectedly, and the visitor climbed up on the rafters to be out of sight among the old boards and baskets that were stowed away there. The husband put his gun by in a corner, and called to his wife to get his supper, and then sat down in his hammock. Casting his eyes up to the rafters, he saw a leg protruding from among the baskets, and, thinking it something supernatural, crossed himself, and said, 'Lord, deliver us from the legs appearing overhead!' The other, hearing this, attempted to draw up his legs out of sight, but, losing his balance, came down suddenly on the floor in front of the astonished husband, who, half frightened, asked,'Where do you come from?' 'I have just come from heaven,' said the other, 'and have brought you news of your little daughter Maria.' 'Oh! wife, wife! come and see a man who has brought us news of our little daughter Maria;' then, turning to the visitor, continued, 'And what was my little daughter doing when you left?' 'Oh! she was sitting at the feet of the Virgin, with a golden crown on her head, and smoking a golden pipe a yard long.' 'And did she not send any message to us?' 'Oh yes, she sent many remembrances, and begged you to send her two pounds of your tobacco from the little rhossa, they have not got any half so good up there.' 'Oh! wife, wife! bring two pounds of our tobacco from the little rhossa, for our daughter Maria is in heaven, and she says they have not any half so good up there.' So the tobacco was brought, and the visitor was departing, when he was asked, 'Are there many white men up there?' 'Very few,' he replied; 'they are all down below with the diabo.' 'I thought so,' the other replied, apparently quite satisfied; 'good-night!'"
Senhor Calistro had a beautiful canoe made of a single piece of wood, without a nail, the benches being all notched in. He often went in it to Pará, near two hundred miles, and, with twelve good Indians to paddle, and plenty of caxaça, reached the city, without stopping, in twenty-four hours. We sometimes went out to inspect the cane-fields in this canoe, with eight little Negro and Indian boys to paddle, who were always ready for such service. I then took my gun and net, and shot some birds or caught any insects that we met with, while Senhor Calistro would send the boys to climb after any handsome flowers I admired, or to gather the fruit of the passion-flowers, which hung like golden apples in the thickets on the banks. His cane-field this year was a mile and a half long and a quarter of a mile wide, and very luxuriant; across it were eight roads, all planted on each side with bananas and pine-apples. He informed me that when the fruit was in full season all the slaves and Indians had as much as they liked to take, and could never finish them all; but, said he, "It is not much trouble planting them when setting the cane-field, and I always do it, for I like to have plenty." It was altogether a noble sight,—a sample of the over-flowing abundance produced by a fertile soil and a tropical sun. Having mentioned that I much wished to get a collection of fish to preserve in spirits, he set several Indians to work stopping up igaripés to poison the water, and others to fish at night with line and bow and arrow; all that they procured being brought to me to select from, and the rest sent to the kitchen. The best way of catching a variety was, however, with a large drag-net fifty or sixty yards long. We went out one day in two canoes, and with about twenty Negroes and Indians, who swam with the net in the water, making a circuit, and then drew it out on to a beach. We had not very good fortune, but soon filled two half-bushel baskets with a great variety of fish, large and small, from which I selected a number of species to increase my collection.
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