Little happened worth narrating during my forty days' stay at
Aveyros. The time was spent in the quiet, regular pursuit of
Natural History: every morning I had my long ramble in the
forest, which extended to the back-doors of the houses, and the
afternoons were occupied in preserving and studying the objects
collected. The priest was a lively old man, but rather a bore
from being able to talk of scarcely anything except homoeopathy,
having been smitten with the mania during a recent visit to
Santarem. He had a Portuguese Homoeopathic Dictionary, and a
little leather case containing glass tubes filled with globules,
with which he was doctoring the whole village.
A bitter enmity seemed to exist between the female members of the
priest's family, and those of the captain's-- the only white
women in the settlement. It was amusing to notice how they
flaunted past each other, when going to church on Sundays, in
their starched muslin dresses. I found an intelligent young man
living here, a native of the province of Goyaz, who was exploring
the neighbourhood for gold and diamonds.
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