The Young Cling On To The Mother's
Back When She Swims.
Farther on we stopped to take in wood at a large Brazilian cattle
establishment, and a man there assured us that "there were no
venomous insects except tigers," but these killed at least fifteen
per cent.
Of his animals. Not long previously a tiger had, in one
night, killed five men and a dog. The heat every day grew more
oppressive. On the eighth day we passed the Brazilian fort and
arsenal of Cuimbre, with its brass cannon shining in a sun of brass,
and its sleepy inhabitants lolling in the shade.
Five weeks after leaving Rio Janeiro we finally anchored in Corumba,
an intensely sultry spot. Corumba is a town of 5,000 inhabitants, and
often said to be one of the hottest in the world. It is an unhealthy
place, as are most towns without drainage and water supply. In the
hotter season of the year the ratio on a six months' average may be
two deaths to one birth. It is a place where dogs at times seem more
numerous than people, a town where justice is administered in ways
new and strange. Does the reader wish an instance? An assassin of the
deepest dye was given over by the judge to the tender mercies of the
crowd. The man was thereupon attacked by the whole population in one
mass. He was shot and stabbed, stoned and beaten until he became
almost a shapeless heap, and was then hurried away in a mule cart,
and, without coffin, priest or mourners, was buried like a dog.
Perhaps the populace felt they had to take the law into their own
hands, for I was told that the Governor had taken upon himself the
responsibility of leaving the prison gates open to thirty-two men,
who had quietly walked out. These men had been incarcerated for
various reasons, murder, etc., for even in this state of Matto Grosso
an assassin who cannot pay or escape suffers a little imprisonment.
The excuse was, "We cannot afford to keep so many idle men - we are
poor." What a confession for a Brazilian! I do not vouch for the
story, for I was not an eye-witness to the act, but it is quite in
the range of Brazilian possibilities. The only discrepancy may be the
strange way of Portuguese counting. A man buys three horses, but his
account is that he has bought twelve feet of horses. He embarks a
hundred cows, but the manifest describes the transaction as four
hundred feet. The Brazilian is in this respect almost a Yankee -
little sums do not content him. Why should they, when he can
truthfully boast that his territory is larger than that of the United
States? His mile is longer than that of any other nation, and the
bocadinho, or extra "mouthful," which generally accompanies it, is
endless. Instead of having one hundred cents to the dollar, he has
two thousand, and each cent is called a "king." The sound is big, but
alas, the value of his money is insignificantly small!
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