In any account of the women of Brazil the story of the Amazons should find place. The early explorers of the Amazon country have generally accepted, or at any rate given prominence to, the Indian narrative of these female-warriors. They are said to have formed a powerful body and to have ruled over a large territory and proved invincible in battle. In appearance tall, robust, and fair they wore their long hair twisted about their heads; their costume was simply a dress of animal skin which they tucked about their loins; their weapons were bows and arrows. Humboldt relates the Indian account that these warrior women once a year admitted to their company for a limited time the men of the neighboring tribe, who at the expiration of their period of leave were sent away with presents. All the male children born to these women were killed in infancy, the female children being brought up by their mothers. The origin of this tribe of female-warriors is clouded with mystery. One explanation is that they abandoned the men of their tribe and sought to establish a settlement in the region of the Jamundá River, but being followed by their disconsolate husbands and despairing lovers, pity caused them to relent to the extent of making a pact with the discarded ones to admit them to their society on sufferance once a year. We have no sufficient data concerning the organization of government of the tribe or other information which would admit of treating this subject otherwise than as a curious historic phase of Brazilian womanhood. Through the periods of settlement and the Portuguese rule we pass without notice of any woman of such prominence as to secure noteworthy mention, yet woman's influence must have been exerted and felt along each step of the path toward independence; they buttressed with their ambition and patriotism the enlarging spirit of nationality. So in the crisis that followed the declaration of independence in 1822, we need not be surprised to find a woman mentioned for heroism and patriotism. A Bahian girl, Maria de Jesus Medeiros, touched by her father's lament that he had no son to fight in his country's cause, and fired to action, disguised herself as a soldier and fought through the war. Her signal service, however, was on the occasion of the attempted landing of a powerful force of Lusitanians at the mouth of the Paraguassú River. Here Maria stood to resist the invader; at the head of a troop of Bahian Amazons she charged the oncoming soldiers, and, in spite of superior numbers, discipline and equipment, her valor and that of her companions prevailed and the discomfited Portuguese were driven back ingloriously.