I had chartered a small steamer on which I used to go on sporting expeditions with some of the officers.  They were somewhat in the nature of voyages of discovery up the rivers which fall into Bahia Bay.  During one of these excursions we had got some considerable distance up the Cachoeira without seeing a sign of any inhabitants, and leaving our boat at anchor, we had landed and spent our day in slaying toucans, parrokeets of all colours, and all the strange birds and beasts peopling the virgin forest, when at sunset we fell upon a cleared path, which led us to a wide glade and then to a village, the existence of which had been hitherto quite unsuspected by us.  We entered it and found it deserted, the doors of all the houses shut.  We went towards a very large square in the middle of the “Pueblo”—­it was deserted too.  We entered a fine church, the door of which stood open—­not a soul within it, though the smell of the incense at some recently performed religious ceremony still hung in the air.  In the middle of the square stood a kiosk, evidently intended for concerts; the instruments of an orchestra were still there, lying on the chairs before the desks, as if the music had only been broken off a few minutes previously.  This suddenly deserted village rather puzzled us.  But in the hope of bringing the population back to life, and with a certain spice too of mischief, we laid down our guns, and seizing on the big drum, and the abandoned trombones and clarionets, we raised a most alarming noise.  It was mere waste of time, nobody came.  The evening was falling, it was time to get back on board our steamer, and we quietly retook our way towards her.  Night—­a moonlight night it was—­had completely closed in, when we got to the mangrove creek, where we had left the small boat which was to bring us back on board.  We were crowding into the little craft, half aground on the mud, when a great clamour rose from the forest, and we saw weapons glint through the foliage on all sides.  In the twinkling of an eye, before we had time to get over our surprise, a crowd of people armed with guns, swords, and pikes, rushed up at top speed, yelling loudly, and surrounded us, some remaining on shore and others throwing themselves into the water.  We were instantly carried off, disarmed, separated, soundly thrashed, and dragged into the forest.  Anybody who has looked at the picture of the savages attacking Captain Cook, in the history of his voyage, will have an exact idea of the scene.  It was not otherwise than picturesque in the moonlight, and under that tropical vegetation; and it really was an attack by savages too, most of them negroes, and the rest mulattoes.  Very luckily for us, our surprise and our unloaded guns, and the way we were crowded into the boat, prevented our making any resistance, otherwise we should certainly have been massacred, surrounded as we were by 200 armed men.  Each of us had his own little experience in the scuffle.  I, for my