THE TRAVELLER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1250, 13 February 1896, Page 13

THE TRAVELLER.

IN A PORTUGUESE COLONY.

SOME QUEER CUSTOMERS.

We had been talking of convicts, of the difference between British penal servitude and French “ travaux forces" in New Caledonia. “ Well," exclaimed McTavish, A n American friend of ours, “ I guess that if I had to be a convict, and had the choice, I should rather like to be a Portuguese convict. Of course, I would rather not be a convict at all; but, you see, accidents will happen in this life, and I’m told that on this side of the water you can’t shoot a fellow, or even shoot him at sight after giving him due warning, without running the risk of getting a lifer. Now, I call that disgraceful, when it’s all fair and square. For instance, look at Pat O’Brien, the fat cowboy, who used to be in Texas." . . . Here we had to interrupt McTavish, a curious character, who had been all over the world, with constant ups and downs : gold miner in California, cowboy in Texas, “road agent" (highway robber) during a short time (he explained to us once that he could not stick to that business because it had so degenerated, and lie got disgusted with it because one of his mates had once robbed a woman) ; he had' kept a faro saloon in Denver,: and with his earnings had made a fortune in Wall street and lost it. He emigrated to Australia, and then worked his passage before the mast to the Cape; and, after a few years of roving life in South Africa and the Toriugu.se colonies, he made a pile in one of the South African booms, and came to London “ to see a bit of life." An inexhaustible teller of anecdotes, he invariably wandered from one tale to another, unless brought back into the groove of his story. We insisted upon hearing his opinion on Portuguese convicts.

“ Well," lie- said, “ I don’t know whether you remember the story that one of your countrymen —a Johnny c illed Johnston —told in one of his books how, having one day wandered in the interior from Benguela or St. Paul de Loanda, one of the Portuguese colonies on the West Coast of Africa, he came across a nice little settlement, and was most hospitably received by the owner. He found him a most refined fellow, with all sorts of up-to-date books, magazines and papers, and a kind of a dude in his way. Johnston was rather astonished to find sucli a man lost in the wilds of Africa, and aher some questioning discovered that his refined friend was a convict undergoing a sentence of ten years’ hard on account of a difference of opinion he ha i with his guardian. The latter ran against a knife his ward happened to hold in his hand. The guardian died, and his ward was sent to Africa as a convict. Of c urse this was on the West Coa>t, whore the better class of convicts are sent. I don't know auything myself about the West Coast, but several times when prospecting in the interior I oatue into contact with tho Portuguese on the East Coast.

A NICE OLD GENTLEMAN. Once, I remember, I was at a nice little station, where I found a good many white men, all Portuguese ; some of them spoke French, and as I had picked up that lingo from a Canadian who was my partner in California, I got on pretty well with the fellows. I got especially chummy with the Governor, a ]olly old chap, who kept three wives—darkies, you know—that he had married native fashion, and a fine time he had to keep peace among them. Well, one day we went together to what they called the literary society, a nice little place with plenty of hooks and a billiard-table, but no drinks. Fancy playing billiards and no drinks, and that in a place where you can cook eggs in the sun I We started a game of billiards;;, there was a billiard-marker, a young chap with long hair, and looking as yellow as a lemon. Twice when I was going to

play a stroke the fellow fell against me. He was drunk, as drunk as they make them. Well, I resented it a good deal, especially as I was feeling so dry myself, so I turned to the Governor and said to him in my best French: “ Now, look here, Mr Governor, I guess I am feeling rather dry ; what would you sa} 7 to going home for a refresher ?" He agreed, and on the way I told him that I thought it was rather disgraceful that a billiardmarker should appear so drunk before his Governor. “ Poor fellow," replied my host, “I noticed it myself; but what can Ido ? I feel so much pity for him. You see, he draws only 25.000 reis (this, by the way, means £1) a month as billiardmarker ; and besides the 10s he gets as lamplighter he has only the pound lie draws every month from the gaol.” “ How from the gaol ? What has he got to do with the gaol '?” I exclaimed. “ Oh,” replied my .friend, “ he is undergoing a sentence of twenty years’ hard labour; he murdered his uncle and his cousin in order to inherit their money.” “ And he is allowed to go about as he likes ?"—“ Yes ; you see he is a white man, and, as we have only one gaol, and we cannot keep die convicts they send us from Portugal with the niggers, we allow them to do a bit of work, and, as they get neither lodging nor food from the gaol, they are allowed £1 a month as compensation. But," added the Governor, “ some of them do very well, and several hold Government appointments !" This seemed rather peculiar, but I did not say anything to hurt my friend’s feelings. I was detained a pretty long time in the place, and soon got still mors chummy with the Governor; he confided to me all his troubles with his wives, and called me whenever he had a case to try. Some of these cases were rather queer. One evening I was dining with him under the verandah of his house when a soldier appeared dressed in rags and looking halfstarved. A HUNDRED ON THE HAND. “ What do you want ?" said the Governor. —“Your excellency, I am one of the men of Alferes don Jose (the commanding officer of a station some three hundred miles in the interior), and as neither myself nor toy comrades have received any pay or any clothes for the last seven months, I have come to crave justice from your excellency. I also want to add that I was enlisted at Benguela to serve for five years, and it is sixteen years now I have been here, and I should like to go back to my country." “ Have you got leave from your commanding officer to come here?" —“No, your excellency, but " “So,"exclaimed the Governor, rising from his chair and lashing himself into a fury, “ so you dare to leave .your post without leave, and you dare to complain because you have not received any pay for the last seven months, you scoundrel, you filho da porco, to come and tell me that; but I, your Governor, have not received any pay for the last nine months, and I do not complain.

Ho, rapaz (Ho, boy), Ho, Martinez, come here and bring the palmaloria and the irons !"

The palmatoria is a kind of bat consisting of a flat round head about six inches in diameter and one inch thick with a handle a couple of feet long. The executioner hits the open palm of the culprit’s hand with all his might with the head of this instrument. When Martinez, the head man and executioner returned with the palmatoria, the Governor ordered him to give one hundred strokes on the unfortunate soldier’s hands! The poor beggar shrieked, howled, prayed for mercy, but the Governor went on counting the strokes, calling him in the meantime by all those abusive terms of which the Portuguese language is so rich. When the punishment was over tho soldier’s hands were swollen, the bleed streaming from them. He was then marched to the prison, some bOO y ards away, and on the road the crowd that had collected kicked him and stoned him by way of a lark. I | guess I have seen a good many kinds of corporal punishments and tortures in various parts of the world, but never did I feel more sorry for a man than 1 did that day. I have seen some pirates in China hanged by the thumbs behind the back and cut about with a sliced bamboo stick ; but then these men had kdh d and tortured hundreds of people, and I could not pity them. We resumed our dinner, and I told the Governor that I thought he had been rather hard. “ Oh," he replied, “ that’s nothing. I have often given three hundred of palmatoria to one man. And fancy the impudent wretch daring to ! complain because he has been seven j months without pay, when I, a Governor, | have to go for a year without a red cent !" I “ How is that ?" —“ You see we draw our pay in drafts on the Treasury in Lisbon, and these have to be presented over and over again before they are paid." Some days later I got proof that this was a fact. I wanted some trading goods j to return to South Africa, and having j none ready at hand I asked my friend the j Governor if he thought that traders would take my drafts. He replied that if they j would not take them he would change j them for me and give me Government j drafts. I thanked him, and went to a j trader. I explained to him how I was ; situated, and lie replied that he should be delighted to take my drafts, “ but," he j added, “if you give me Government paper j I shall have to charge you twenty per ! cent, more for the goods. I have at j present over TIOOO worth of Government

drafts due now more than a year, and I , cannot obtain payment." Pie proved what he said by showing me the dis- ] honoured drafts. ; ALL ON ACCOUNT OF ELIZA. I gradually became quite friendly with my Governor, and one day 7 , complaining to me of all the hardships the colonial officers had to undergo, he quoted liis own example. “ Look at me, for instance," he said, “ here I am nearly fifty 7 years of age, and I only 7 rank as a lieutenant in the army." “How it that ?" I replied.—“ You see I have been rather unfortunate —women, women, they have been my ruin. I was married in Portugal long ago, but then I got tired of my wife, and just as I was ordered out to the colonies I met uma mulher bonita ; ah ! such a lovely woman ey r es, sir, and hair, and a mouth a dream ! We loved each other, and she agreed to come out with me to Africa ; so I applied for a passage at Government expense, and we sailed out together. Well, would you fancy 7 —such are women —we had not been more than a fortnight in Lorenzo Marquez when she left me and married a chemist fellow ! I was prosecuted for having obtained a free passage for her as my wife, and I was sentenced to eighteen months for escroqueiie. Since then they have applied to me over and over again for the passage money, but of course I did not pay. Fancy getting eighteen months and having to pay 7 —the idea !" “ But," I remarked, “ how is it that you did not lose your commission after that ?"

—“ Lose my 7 commission for a mere sentence of eighteen months ! Of course not ; an officer only loses his commission when he is sentenced to a peine infamantz —that is, to at least two years and one day’s imprisonment." “ Well, I thought this was a rather free-and-easy country, but I guess I could tell .you a few more of my experiences out there that would startle you." ... It was getting late and we retired, but not before Mr McTavish had promised to let us hear another day some more of his experiences among the Portuguese.—Pall Mall Gazette.