of the most rollicking good humor. What he said was what is said by
all the charlatans who place their services at the public disposal,
whether they be Spanish Figaros or French perruqiers. At the bottom
the same self-possession, the same knowledge of human weakness, the
same description of threadbare witticisms, the same amusing
dexterity, and, on the part of the natives, the same wide-mouth
astonishment, the same curiosity, the same credulity as the simple
folk of the civilized world.
It followed, then, that ten minutes later the public were completely
won, and crowded round Fragoso, who was installed in a _”loja”_ of
the place, a sort of serving-bar to the inn.
The _loja_ belonged to a Brazilian settled at Tabatinga. There, for a
few vatems, which are the sols of the country, and worth about twenty
reis, or half a dozen centimes each, the natives could get drinks of
the crudest, and particularly assai, a liquor half-sold, half-liquid,
made of the fruit of the palm-tree, and drunk from a _”coui”_ or
half-calabash in general use in this district of the Amazon.
And then men and women, with equal eagerness, took their places on
the barber’s stool. The scissors of Fragoso had little to do, for it
was not a question of cutting these wealthy heads of hair, nearly all
remarkable for their softness and their quality, but the use to which
he could put his comb and the tongs, which were kept warming in the
corner in a brasier.
And then the encouragements of the artist to the crowd!
“Look here! look here!” said he; “how will that do, my friends–if
you don’t sleep on the top of it! There you are, for a twelvemonth!
and these are the latest novelties from Belem and Rio de Janeiro! The
queen’s maids of honor are not more cleverly decked out; and observe,
I am not stingy with the pomade!”
No, he was not stingy with it. True, it was only a little grease,
with which he had mixed some of the juices of a few flowers, but he
plaster it on like cement!
And as to the names of the capillary edifices–for the monuments
reared by the hands of Fragoso were of every order of
architecture–buckles, rings, clubs, tresses, crimpings, rolls,
corkscrews, curls, everything found there a place. Nothing false; no
towers, no chignons, no shams! These head were not enfeebled by
cuttings nor thinned by fallings-off, but were forests in all their
native virginity! Fragoso, however, was not above adding a few
natural flowers, to or three long fish-bones, and some fine bone or
copper ornaments, which were brought him b the dandies of the
district. Assuredly, the exquisites of the Directory would have
envied the arrangement of these high-art coiffures, three and four
stories high, and the great Leonard himself would have bowed before
his transatlantic rival.
And then the vatems, the handfuls of reis–the only coins for which
the natives of the Amazon exchange their goods–which rained into the
pocket of Fragoso, and which he collected with evident satisfaction.
But assuredly night would come before he could satisfy the demands of
the customers, who were so constantly renewed. It was not only the
population of Tabatinga which crowded to the door of the loja. The
news of the arrival of Fragoso was not slow to get abroad; natives
came to him from all sides: Ticunas from the left bank of the river,
Mayorunas from the right bank, as well as those who live on the
Cajuru and those who come from the villages of the Javary.
A long array of anxious ones formed itself in the square. The happy
ones coming from the hands of Fragoso went proudly from one house to
another, showed themselves off without daring to shake themselves,
like the big children that they were.
It thus happened that when noon came the much-occupied barber had not
had time to return on board, but had had to content himself with a
little assai, some manioc flour, and turtle eggs, which he rapidly
devoured between two applications of the curling-tongs.
But it was a great harvest for the innkeeper, as all the operations
could not be conducted without a large absorption of liquors drawn