I recollect Apollinario telling me of his distress on one occasion, when he resided in the Varzea. He met the vicar of that parish on horseback with the sacrament, which he had been taking to some sick person. The rain poured in torrents, and the mud in the road was half way up to the knees; but yet it was necessary to pay the usual respect, consequently the old creole went down upon one knee, and as the priest passed, he cried out, “Pardon me, Sir vicar, for this one knee, but if I was to put both to the ground, I could not again rise.” He told me this with perfect gravity, and I perceived that he thought this circumstance would be recorded against him as one of his heaviest sins. One day the old man came to me with a face of dismay, to shew me a ball of leaves tied up with _cypô_, which he had found under a couple of boards, upon which he slept in an out-house; for he had removed from the house of his friend in the town to my place. The ball of leaves was about the size of an apple. I could not imagine what had caused his alarm, until he said that it was _mandinga_, which had been set for the purpose of killing him; and he bitterly bewailed his fate, that at his age any one should wish to hasten his death, and to carry him from this world before our Lady thought fit to send for him. I knew that two of the black women were at variance; and suspicion fell upon one of them who was acquainted with the old _mandingueiro_ of Engenho Velho, therefore she was sent for. I judged that the _mandinga_ was not set for Apollinario, but for the negress whose business it was to sweep the ouhouse. I threatened to confine the suspected woman at Pillar, and then to send her to Para, unless she discovered the whole affair; this she did, after she heard me tell the manager to prepare to take her to Pillar. She said that the _mandinga_ was placed there to make one of the negroes dislike her fellow slave and prefer her to the other. The ball of _mandinga_ was formed of five or six kinds of leaves of trees, among which was the pomegranate leaf; there were likewise two or three bits of rag, earth of a peculiar kind, ashes which were of the bones of some animal; and there might be other ingredients besides, but these were what I could recognise. The woman either could not from ignorance, or would not, give any information respecting the several things of which the ball was composed. I made this serious matter of the _mandinga_, from knowing the faith which not only many of the negroes have in it, but also some of the mulatto people; however I explained to every one that I was angry with her from the bad intention of the scheme, and not from any belief that it would have any effect. There is another name for this kind of charm; it is _feitiço_, and the initiated are called _feitiçeiros_; of these there was one formerly at the plantation of St. Joam, upon the island, who became so much dreaded that his master sold him to be sent to Maranham.