Page:The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse.pdf/201

80 THE CAPTIVITY OF HANS STADE

Iterroenne, he had to pass through the place where I was. When he set out he expected nought but that they would eat me; he had also commanded them so to do; and, as he had been absent for some time, he little expected to find me otherwise than dead.

Now when he again came to me in the huts, he spoke to me in the savage tongue, and at that time I went about unfettered. Then he asked me if I still lived, when I said "Yes, I thanked God, that he had preserved me so long." Perhaps he might have heard from the savages how this had happened, and I called him privately to a spot where the savages could not hear what I said, and told him that he saw plainly that God had preserved my life, also that I was no Portuguese, but a German, and had through ship wreck with the Spaniards, come among the Portuguese, that he also might now tell the savages, how I had informed him that I belonged to his friends and allies, and that he desired to take me with him to where the ships arrived. For I feared that, if he did not do this, they would yet con-

1 Mungu Wappe is probably Mamanguápe, not an uncommon name for villages and meaning a kind of wasp: there is a stream so called in the valley of the northern Parahyba. Iteroenne in chap. iv is called Iteronne and Iterone: it is the Nhiteroi of Jaboatam, the Nithero of Vasconcellos and the modern Niheroy, Nicteroy, Nictheroy or Nitherohy, usually translated "hidden water", but meaning according to Varnhagen (ii, 346) cold water, from Mteró (cold) and y or yg. At present it is applied to the town of Bragança popularly Praia Grande, which lies opposite the metropolis of the Brazil, and is the capital of "Rio Province." The authors use it for the Bay, now called Rio de Janeiro, which, however, was more generally known as Genabara, Ganabara and especially Guanabara. The latter, says Varnhagen (i, 229) is probably an error of Guá-ná-pará for Paraná-guá, Sack of the sea, bay or bight, and is still preserved in Brazilian geography. Both Nictheroy and Guanabara are charmingly descriptive terms, supplanted by the unmeaning "Bay of Rio." The settlement afterwards called Bragança, dates from A.D. 1557: in the days of Hans Stade it was held by the French Huguenota under Villegaignon, and they founded a colony which they called somewhat prematurely “ La France Antarctique.”

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