n the
window-ledge, howling and spitting at us as we passed. His clothes were
torn to shreds; his eyes were sunken and staring, his long, thin, sinewy
arms, with hands which hung as if dead, occasionally and unconsciously
touching this or that near them. I tried to get close, to talk and
examine him; but his fury was so great against the policeman who
accompanied me that it was impossible to get near. He was trying to bite
like a mad dog, and injured himself in his efforts to get at us. Another
lunatic, too--loose in a chamber with other prisoners--gave a wonderful
exhibition of fury--that time against me, as he was under the impression
that I had come there to kill him! He was ready to spring at me when two
policemen seized him and drove him back.

There was a theatre in Goyaz--a rambling shed of no artistic pretensions.
The heat inside that building was stifling. When I inquired why there
were no windows to ventilate the place I was told that a leading Goyaz
gentleman, having once travelled to St. Petersburg in Russia in
winter-time, and having seen there a theatre with no windows, eventually
returned to his native city, and immediately had all the windows of the
theatre walled up, regardless of the fact that what is suitable in a
semi-arctic climate is hardly fit for a stifling tropical country.

One thing that struck me most in Goyaz was the incongruity of the
people. With the little literature which found its way so far in the
interior, most of the men professed advanced social and religious ideas,
the majority making pretence of atheism in a very acute form. "Down with
faith: down with religion: down with the priests!" was their cry.

Yet, much to my amazement--I was there in Easter week--one evening there
was a religious procession through the town. What did I see? All those
fierce atheists, with bare, penitent heads stooping low, carrying lighted
candles and wooden images of our crucified Saviour and the Virgin! The
procession was extremely picturesque, the entire population, dressed up
for the occasion, being out in the streets that night, while all the men,
including the policemen and federal soldiers--all bareheaded--walked
meekly along in the procession, each carrying a candle. When the
procession arrived at the church, the Presidente himself--another
atheist--respectfully attended the service; then the priest came out and
delivered a spirited sermon to the assembled crowds in the square. Then
you saw thos