|
|
Scalawag on the Web Sectory 10
Page 08
Considering the amount of navigation that went through, it was amazing to see how badly lighted that river was--the two lights, such as the one at Buyussu, and the one at Mandy, at the entrance of the bay of Marajo, being no bigger than and not so brilliant as the ordinary street oil-lamp in an English or French village. I understand that all ships navigating the Amazon have to pay a large tax on each journey for the maintenance of the lighthouses on that immense waterway. It is quite criminal that no proper lights are constructed in order to protect the safety of the passengers and the valuable cargoes which go by that important water route.
These characters make their appearance four times during the course of the night, the spectators dancing during the intervals. After their last exit dancing continues until shortly before sunrise; then the medicine-man and the singers arise, and, forming a circle about the fire in the centre of the _kozhan_, sing a number of songs. A maiden is summoned from the gathering to carry a basket of sacred meal, and the medicine-man, taking up the top of the spruce tree, passes out of the enclosure toward the rising sun, followed by the maiden, the patient, the singers, and any who may be afflicted with a bodily ailment. At a distance of about a hundred yards the medicine-man stops and plants the little spruce tip, to which the disease is now supposed to have been transferred, under a tree, sprinkling over it quantities of the sacred meal. Then each of the others, the patient leading, steps forward, throws a pinch of the meal on the tree, and passes on, always facing the east. When the last one has thus passed, the procession stops, everybody holds his blanket ready, and on signal from the medicine-man, just as the sun appears, gives it a shake and runs at full speed to the _kozhan_ and around the fire. Thus is disease shaken out and the pursuit of the evil spirits of sickness eluded.
Tiberius served under his brother-in-law in Africa, and was the first who scaled the walls of Carthage. He was Quaestor in B.C. 137, and accompanied the Consul C. Hostilius to Spain, where he saved the army by obtaining a treaty with the Numantines, which the Senate refused to ratify.[61] In passing through Etruria, on his way to Spain, Tiberius had observed with grief and indignation the deserted state of that fertile country. Thousands of foreign slaves were tending the flocks and cultivating the soil of the wealthy landowners, while Roman citizens, thus thrown out of employment, could scarcely procure their daily bread, and had not a clod of earth to call their own. He now conceived the design of applying a remedy to this state of things, and with this view became a candidate for the Tribunate, and was elected for the year B.C. 133.
|
