Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1859-10-12
A BRAZILIAN PICNIC.
BY HoN. G. +. BERKELEY.

operandi'' in getting up these anti-aristecratic
sylvan reunions, must certainly decide in
favor of having them continued forever, and
will vote, the first opportunity Tor Congress,
or the city council, or the clerk of the wealth
er, to pass an act to the effect that summer
shall be continued for five years without inter-
mission and at the expiration of that time,
if the plan works well, we can pass law to
have suminerand pic-nic's reign perpetual.
And now, as every body in this country
knows exactly how these affairs are conduc-
ted in ssY ank eedom z and as the spirit of i'm
provement is the spirit of the age, have
thought that description of the manner of
doing the same thing in South America might
not be altogether void of interest.
] shall select, my model, picnic at
which I had the honor to act as one of the
stewards and if any one should discover any
improvements in the principles upon which it
was got up and carried out, they have the full
lest liberty, so far as l am concerned, to adopt
them whenever they think proper.
1t was some time in the month of December,
1913, that ten of lis, citizens of Pelotas, a
beautiful town situated on the right bank of
the Rio Gonzales, in the province Of Rio
Grande, put our heads together, and our wits
to work, one afternoon,i in order to conjure up,
contrive, and adopt some plan whereby we
should be enabled to kill time, or get killed
ourselves-for it was terrible tedious times
with us, living there with nothing to do, and
six years had been constantly on the wing in
the revolutionary service against our legitimate
sovereign, DonP nPedroSegundO,t to be thus penn
ed up without any kind of excitement, we'd
die unless got up something that would put
our blood in circulation.
have said that there were ten of us, and 1
win now add, that we represented about as
many different nations as we did indlN iduai
specimens of humanity-and that we were all
either culonels, captains. or doctors, (officers
,rere plenty in that reyolution,) and each OF us
had wife, and-not much of anything else.
Yes-we had each a couple OF first rate horses,
worth perhaps six dollars piece, half do
zen dogs, as many 'snggers," prime rife,
and pair of choice reyolvers.
The afternoon session was about to adj journ
without having hit upon anything definite:
| when Doctor Tom Vernon, whose pretty Span
ish wife had relations living somewhere on the
Paraguay river, only about hundred leagues
distant proposes that we should club together.
and get up a regular picnic excursion, and
have a cruise in the country on horseback.
ssThat's it! Hurrah for Uncle Tom 20 we
all shouted. ssJust the thing. Wouldn't we
have time ?''
And away We all scattered to get ready for
the cruise.
About noon on the following day, I'VE all met
on the lee side of the old cathedral, men, wo-
men, ssniggers,' horses, dogs, and provisions,
and proceeded to call a court of inquiry for
the purpose of ascertaining if We were all in
good sailing order. The result was perfectly
satisfactory. There We were-ten colonies,
| captains, and doctors, ten decidedly pretty
women twenty of the blackest kind OF blacks,
| Just forty -four horses, and dogs-there were
| more dogs than ever you saw in one flock,
| know.
We had lots of provisions slowed away in
| in the hinge raw-bide baskets, sluDg one on
each side of our four pack horses; and then
among other sea-storeS we had slowed
| away a few dozen bottles of old. You sons
! of temperance and teetotalers, you can t think
! how uGrm 'tis out there. Why, bless you, we
| never hear of such thing as cold water in
| Brazil.
| Well, we made sail, and got under way for
| the cruise of three hundred miles, through a
| country almost native wilderness, swarmng
with every variety of reptiles, serpents, and
wild beasts, from the Internal little niggers to
| the monstrous puma, and infested with rowing
/ bands of runaway blacks, native tribes of fe-
rocious sayages, and hordes of fierce bandtt,
who robbed for amusement, and murdered for
pleasure.
| Pleasant, waSn'tit?
| But then it was nothing to us,who had spent
nearly six years of our lives on horseback, in
! those same woods-not to our wives either, who
were a brace of revolvers in their belts, twelve
| inches of cold steel under their garters, and
used two stirrups to their saddles.
/ w eH.w6 went through IN ABOUT aWeeK WltE-
out accident, except losing dog, which a
young anaconda swallowed for his breakfast
one morning, and s'nigger," that a big puma
| trolIed off with for his supper one evening.
/ However,, that was no consequence, as we had
dogs and niggers enough.
After visiting among all OF our friends
and some of our enemies along the river, for
| about six weeks, We set out In high spirits,
and with fresh stock of provisions and
bottles, on our homeward bound passage.
For the first two days the time passed of
| very agrecably, and we had fine sport running
| down ostrich, or shooting an Indian, now
! and then for the fun of the thing-that is, the
| ostrches--the Indians we only shot to prevent
| them from shooting u.s..
On the morning of the third day, when we
! had finished our breakfast, we concluded to
/ have chase after some forty or more ostricheS,
which we discovered about half a mile off. and
| SO dispatched six Of our blacks with the four
i pack horses on ahead, with orders to halt on
j the banks of small river, which ran along
the edge of broad sandy plain, where we di-
rected them to have dinner prepared against
our arrival.
The distance TO the river was about eighteen
miles, and we guessed we could chase the
long legged birds couple of hours, and then
have plenty of time to get through by two o.
clock p. M, which was our usual dinner hour.
We chased the ostriches till we caught about
| dozen of them, which we. robbed OF their
| tails and let them go again.
At length we got tired of the sport, and
started off at round gallop after our dinner,
and perhrps taste of something else, which
we remembered was in our leathern lockers
aboard the pack horses.
At two, precisely, we arrived at the river,
but not horse or niger was there In signt.
And worse than all, there was no dinner in
sight either-not drop Of; murder! we
| couldn't drink that warm ,insipid water, no how
| After ranging up and down the river for 1--WE