Mexico weekly ledger., 1877-01-25
A G E OF PAYNETE.

PaYnete is 81 small island in the Bay
of Bio de Janeiro, the second in dimen-
sions of the seventy that, beneath the
perennial summe of that region, lie
like emeralds upon its FURNISHED field,
the Ilho. do G~obernador, Or, as we
should say, Governors Island, being
the largest. The former is about half
a mile in length, while its breadth in
the narrowe portions is only a few
hundred yards. From the foliage OF
the latter rise the gray turrets of a
monastic foundation, and at morning
and evening, and sometimes at mid
night, their bells peal along the water.
To this insular arcadia came, once,
for q week or two of sea bathing, my
esteemed and venerated friend the Gen
eral, an American gentleman of high
official rank resident in Brazil. And
hither I was hidden to dinner on a GER
tain Christmas not a dozen years ago.
AS I landed and exchanged saluta-
lions with my entertainers, the sound
of midday bells came floating across
the water from the direction of the Tho
do G~obernador, and this circumstance
it may have been which impelled the
General to inform me that among
the guests whom he had invited to din
ner was a reverend father of the mo-
mastery, famed for learning and piety,
whom high honors in the Church were
believed to await. Madame General
told me that some peculiar sorrow rot
usual among the restrained and disci-
plined persons of his order was thought
to have cast it's shadow on his life. Its
only visible effect it was said was to in
crease his austerities and to prolong
his devotional vigils, usages not SO COM
mon among an indolent, tropical priest
hood prone to slumber and indulgence
as to exempt them from attention and
celebration. He was the pride of his
order as Sir Galahad was of that of the
Round Table, and some of his religious
treatises were reputed to have been
perused with appreciation in Rome and
to have united in a common admiration
two such austere and sustaining pillars
of the Church as Father Beckx and
Cardinal Antoneili, who, it is we'll
known, did not always admire the same
things MOI the same persons.
After q little conversation | retired to
make my dinner toilet, and when l re-
turned the remaining guests were as
sembled. First in arrival, as in rank,
was Admiral Amherst, who came in
State, rowed by eight marines dressed
in the uniform of the service; Senior
and Senhora Sylvia, neighbors of the
island, who, from their adjacent villa,
came through the soft afternoon gloom
of the tamarind trees, and Mr.. Carston,
an American banker, long resident in
p;1 do Ia,oosvo whn no /, Hr, tho -fna, ~,
boat from the city. Dinner was served
upon the porch, and it CHANGED that
from where / sat, across a sandy OPEN
ing in the thicket of, trees with which
the island is mainly covered, appeared
the facade of a habitation which bore a
strange and ominous look of ruin and
desertion. Its windows were vacant ;
it's porch broken and clambered over
with vines; at one side it's roof seemed
to have sunken through the r~afters,
leaving a rent which the rapid
vegetation of that region of heat and
moisture was striving to repair. The
object was so near and visible that it
naturally became a topic of converse
ton among the assembled guests.
"It belonged to Senior Joao," said
the banker. 1t has not been occu-
pied for a number of years. By the
way, this is Christmas. 1t was on
Christmas night, six years ago, that it
was abandoned, and under ~circum-
stances so mysterious and tragical that,
SO timorous and superstitious are peo-
pie hereabouts, it is not likely even to
be occupied again"
Mr.. Carston was unanimously en-
treated to tell us what those circum-
stances were.
"Senhor Joao," he said, "was for
merly a conspicuous if not an honored
parsonage in the neighboring city.
Something more than twenty years be-
fore he made his appearance among its
merchants and at once took a place of
considerable prominence among them.
No one knew his history or from whence
he came, and although curiosity On
these points was not wanting he SEEM
ed not at all disposed to crafty it. He
was possessed of large sums of money,
which his commercial operations al
most invariably increased. 1t was u
morea in some quarters that he had
been a pirate and in that way acquired
not only the deep transverse scar which
increased the sinister aspect of a coun-
tenance naturally ferociOus and forbid
ding, but the great fortune which pro-
cured for him whatever consideration
he possessed. A more rational surmise, |
and indeed n that turned out to be
true, was that he had been a SLAYER and |
had made his fortune by running car
goes of negroes from the Barracoons OF
the gold coast and the Gaboon to the |
West Indies and Brazil.
"But Notwithstanding the dread and
aversion excited by his appearance AND
the mystery in which his career was in
his wealth did not fail to secure
him coadjutors and allies. Among
these was the Senior Ramon Esquiros,
merchant, esteemed nc less for his
probity than for his wealth and his