I was obliged in September to forsake my house for three days from a most unexpected cause. A whale was stranded upon one of the sand-banks at the mouth of the harbour; this being the third time that the inhabitants of Itamaraca had been favoured with visitors of this description. _Jangadas_ were sent out to it, and when the tide came in, it floated, and was towed into the harbour, where the persons who were employed in the business landed it, as near as they could at high water mark, in front of and distant from my house about three hundred yards. Many of my neighbours were occupied in making oil; for any one who pleased was at liberty to take as much of the blubber as he could make use of; and one man fairly got into the whale, and ladled out the fat which was melted by the heat of the sun. When the people left the carcase, either at mid-day or at night, it was attacked by numerous flights of _urubus_, and was literally covered by them. The trees round about the spot were occupied by these enormous birds, which were waiting for an opportunity of satisfying their boundless appetites. The _urubu_ is nearly twice the size of the common crow of England; it is quite black, excepting at the point of the beak, which is white, as I have been told, but this I did not observe. Wherever there happens to be the carcase of an animal, these birds assemble shortly after the death of the beast, and they seem to arrive in greater or less numbers according to the size of the carcase. The peasants tell many stories about the king of the _urubus_, who has a tuft of red feathers upon his head, but I never heard any coherent account of this sovereign. The stench proceeding from the whale became in a few days so intolerable as to render a removal necessary, and therefore I applied to an old creole black, a carpenter, to allow me to reside in his cottage, which was neat and clean. To this he agreed; whilst he went to live with some of his friends. CHAPTER XV. RECRUITING.—IMAGES.—ANIMALS.—MARACAS.—APOLLINARIO, MANDINGA AND POULTRY.—HIEROGLYPHICS.—FESTIVAL OF OUR LADY OF CONCEPTION.—FANDANGOS.—THE FORT.—A CHRISTENING.—THE INTRUDO.—THE AUTHOR LEAVES BRAZIL. IN the months of August and September, I was fully employed in planting cane. I hired a number of free labourers, and was under the necessity in a great measure of attending to the work myself. Of this I shall take another opportunity of speaking.