Page:The knickerbocker (IA knickerbocker00agne).pdf/53

fleshy as the lip, and less susceptible of vital action, could not recover their former shape. They reached almost to the shoulders, forming two rings, the opening of which measured nearly two inches in diameter.

With the red-skins, as with all primitive races, the women do all the labor. They build the huts, carry the baggage and children upon a march, weave fabrics from rushes or grass, and manufacture vessels of clay for domestic use. The only work done by men is the making of arrows, and their only occupation is hunting. Any other labor would be unworthy of them. One will readily comprehend that the Indian woman, under a servitude so degrading, Ignorant of every thing that elevates the female character, remains just as she left the mould of nature. Deformed by hard work, disfigured by ill-treatment, living a mere animal life, she can only awaken a feeling of disgust in those who see her for the first time. Observe her eyes, and you see the oblique and timid glance of a wild animal, and nothing of that magic light which reveals intelligence. The consciousness of inferiority causes her to flee from a stranger and conceal herself. In old age, the wrinkles that everywhere furrow her tawny akin, blackened and seamed by age, the blows she has received, exposure to the sun, and fatigue, give her head the appearance of that of an old orang-outang, grimacing and hideous, beneath a long black peruke.

Such are the aborigines of Brazil, Shall we advance toward civilization, or recede from it, in passing from the Indians to the blacks? We shall soon judge.

Nothing seems more simple than to trace the physiognomy of the negro, Nothing, however, is more complex, if aside from all preconceived ideas, we make it a point to be truthful.

After a long journey on horseback I at length reached a fazenda, where I was reposing quietly, when, about three o'clock in the morning, I thought I heard a trumpet sounding a reveille. That is nothing, senhor,' said my guide, who slept in the same room with me. 'It's only the feitor summoning the negroes in order to take them to the fields.' This warlike sound was in fact an announcement to the slave that the hours of sleep were ended, and his labor was to commence. But it is not the privilege of all the blacks to wake at the sound of the trumpet. In most instances I only heard a wretched drum, which I can only compare to the boxes which accompany the bear-shows at the fairs in the Alps and Pyrenees.

I had just again closed my eyes when a sudden explosion of human voices reawoke me.

'Don't disturb yourself, senhor,' said my guide, 'it is the negroes who, before going to the fields, have come to ask a blessing, (benção.) The benção plays a great role in the negro's life. It is the invariable salutation with which he approaches you. To perform a benção according to rule, the slave must take off his woollen cap with his left hand, and stretch out the right in the most humble posture; many of them add a slight flexion of the knees. This attitude is so suggestive of the beggar, that when I first arrived I instinctively carried my hand to my vest-pocket. To avenge himself for this vexation of the white, the blacks exact the benção from the little negroes, and the latter in turn exact it from the macacos, (monkeys,) which they educate to this effect.

Again I fell asleep. An hour later I was once more arosed by a fearful tumult. It was as if a host of tigers and wild cats were fighting and tearing each other with horrible cries. The noise