A Woman's Journey Round The World, From Vienna To Brazil, Chili, Tahiti, China, Hindostan, Persia, And Asia Minor By Ida Pfeiffer
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As My Knowledge Of Portuguese Was
Limited To A Few Words, I Found It Rather Difficult To Make Myself
Understood, And It Was Only By The Help Of Gesticulations, With Now
And Then A Small Sketch, That I Succeeded In Enlightening Them As To
The Real Cause Of My Fear.
I passed the night, therefore, with these half savages, who
constantly showed me the greatest respect, and overwhelmed me with
attention.
A straw mat, which, at my request, was spread out under
shelter in the court-yard, was my bed. They brought me for supper a
roast fowl, rice, and hard eggs, and for dessert, oranges and
tamarind-pods; the latter contain a brown, half sweet, half sour
pulp, very agreeable to the taste. The women lay all round me, and
by degrees we managed to get on wonderfully together.
I showed them the different flowers and insects I had gathered
during the day. This, doubtless, induced them to look upon me as a
learned person, and, as such, to impute to me a knowledge of
medicine. They begged me to prescribe for different cases of
illness: bad ears, eruptions of the skin, and in the children, a
considerable tendency to scrofula, etc. I ordered lukewarm baths,
frequent fomentations, and the use of oil and soap, applied
externally and rubbed into the body. May Heaven grant that these
remedies have really worked some good!
On the 11th of October, I proceeded into the forest, in company with
a negress and a Puri, to find out the Indians.
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