The way in which the coloured races act under the conditions of free citizenship, is a very interesting subject. Brazilian statesmen seem to have abandoned the idea, if they ever entertained it, of making this tropical empire a nation of whites, with a slave labouring class. The greatest difficulty on the Amazons is with the Indians. The general inflexibility of character of the race, and their abhorrence of the restraints of civilised life, make them very intractable subjects. Some of them, however, who have learned to read and write, and whose dislike to live in towns has been overcome by some cause acting early in life, make very good citizens. I have already mentioned the priest, who is a good example of what early training cando. There can be no doubt that if the docile Amazonian Indians were kindly treated by their white fellow-citizens, and educated, they would not be so quick as they have hitherto shown themselves to be to leave the towns and return into 18

their half wild condition on the advancing civilisation of the places. The inflexibility of character, although probably organic, is seen to be sometimes overcome. The principal blacksmith of Ega, Senhor Macedo, was also an Indian, and a very sensible fellow. He sometimes filled minor offices in the government of the place. He used to come very frequently to my house to chat, and was always striving to acquire solid information about things. When Donati’s comet appeared, he took a great interest in it. We saw it at its best from the 3rd to the roth of October (1858), between which dates it was visible near the western horizon, just after sunset; the tail extending in a broad curve towards the north, and forming a sublime object. Macedo consulted all the old almanacs in the place to ascertain whether it was the same comet as that of 1811, which he said he well remembered. Before the Indians can be reclaimed in large numbers, it is most likely they will become extinct as arace. There is less difficulty with regard to the mamelucos, who, even when the proportion of white blood is small, sometimes become enterprising and versatile people. The Indian element in the blood and character seems to be quite lost, or dominated in the offspring of white and mameluco, that is in the fruits of the second cross. 1 saw a striking example of this in the family of a French blacksmith, who had lived for many years on the banks of the Solimoens, and had married a mameluco woman. His children might have all passed as natives of Northern Europe, a little tanned by foreign travel. One of them, a charming young girl named Isabel, was quite a blonde, having gray eyes, light brown hair, and fair complexion; yet her grandmother was a tattooed Indian of the Tuctina tribe.

Many of the Ega Indians, including all the domestic servants, are savages who have been brought from the neighbouring rivers; the Japurd, the Issd, and the Solimoens. I saw here individuals of at least sixteen different tribes; most of whom had been bought, when children, of the native chiefs. ‘This species of slave dealing, although forbidden by the laws of Brazil, is winked at by the authorities, because without it there would be no means of obtaining servants. They all become their own masters when they grow up, and never show the slightest inclination to return to utter savage life. But the boys generally run away, and embark on the canoes of traders; and the girls are often badly treated by their mistresses, the jealous, passionate, and ill-educated Brazilian women. Nearly all the enmities which arise amongst residents at Ega and other places are caused by disputes about Indian servants. No one who has lived only in old settled countries, where service can be readily bought, can imagine the difficulties and annoyances of a land where the servant class are ignorant of the value of money, and hands cannot be obtained except by coaxing them from the employ of other masters.

Great mortality takes place amongst the poor captive children on their arrival at Ega. It is a singular circumstance, that the Indians residing on the Japurd and other tributaries always fall ill on descending to the Solimoens, whilst the reverse takes place with the inhabitants of the banks of the main river, who never fail of taking intermittent fever when they first ascend these branch rivers, and of getting well when they return. ‘The finest tribes of savages who inhabit the country near

Ega are the Juris and the Passés: these are now, however, nearly extinct, a few families only remaining on the banks of the retired creeks connected with the Teffé, and on other branch rivers between the Teffé and the Jutahi. They are a peaceable, gentle, and industrious people, devoted to agriculture and fishing, and have always been friendly to the whites. I shall have occasion to speak again of the Passés, who are a slenderly-built and superior race of Indians, distinguished by a large square tattooed patch in the middle of their faces. The principal cause of their decay in numbers seems to be a disease which always appears amongst them when a village is visited by people from the civilised settlements—a slow fever, accompanied by the symptoms of a common cold, ‘“ defluxo,” as the Brazilians term it, ending probably in consumption. The disorder has been known to break out when the visitors were entirely free from it; the simple contact of civilised men, in some mysterious way, being sufficient to create it. It is generally fatal to the Juris and Passés: the first question the poor patient Indians now put to an advancing canoe is, ‘‘ Do you bring defluxo?”

My assistant José, in the last year of my residence at Ega, “ resgatou” (ransomed, the euphemism in use for purchased) two Indian children, a boy and a girl, through a Japura trader. The boy was about twelve years of age, and of an unusually dark colour of skin; he had, in fact, the tint of a Cafuzo, the offspring of Indian and negro. It was thought he had belonged to some perfectly wild and houseless tribe, similar to the Pardraudtes of the Tapajos, of which there are several in different parts of the interior of South America. His face was of regular, oval shape, but his glistening black eyes had a wary, distrustful expression, like that of a wild animal; and his hands and feet were small and delicately formed. Soon after his arrival, finding that none of the Indian boys and girls in the houses of our neighbours understood his language, he became sulky and reserved; not a word could be got from him until many weeks afterwards, when he suddenly broke out with complete phrases of Portuguese. He was ill of swollen liver and spleen, the result of intermittent fever, for a long time after coming into our hands. We found it difficult to cure him, owing to his almost invincible habit of eating earth, baked clay, pitch, wax, and other similar substances. Very many children on the upper parts of the Amazons have this strange habit; not only Indians, but negroes and whites. It is not, therefore, peculiar to the famous Otomacs of the Orinoco, described by Humboldt, or to Indians at all, and seems to originate in a morbid craving, the result of a meagre diet of fish, wild-fruits, and mandioca meal. We gave our little savage the name of Sebastian. The use of these Indian children is to fill water-jars from the river, gather firewood in the forest, cook, assist in paddling the montaria in excursions, and so forth. Sebastian was often my companion in the woods, where he was very useful in finding the small birds I shot, which sometimes fell in the thickets amongst confused masses of fallen branches and dead leaves. He was wonderfully expert at catching lizards with his hands, and at climbing. The smoothest stems of palm-trees offered little difficulty to him: he would gather a few lengths of tough flexible lianas; tie them in a short endless band to

support his feet with, in embracing the slippery shaft, and then mount upwards by a succession of slight jerks. It was very amusing, during the first few weeks, to witness the glee and pride with which he would bring to me the bunches of fruit he had gathered from almost inaccessible trees. He avoided the company of boys of his own race, and was evidently proud of being the servant of a real white man. We brought him down with us to Para; but he showed no emotion at any of the strange sights of the capital: the steam-vessels, large ships and houses, horses and carriages, the pomp of church ceremonies, and so forth. In this he exhibited the usual dulness of feeling and poverty of thought of the Indian; he had, nevertheless, very keen perceptions, and was quick at learning any mechanical art. José, who had resumed, some time before I left the country, his old trade of goldsmith, made him his apprentice, and he made very rapid progress; for after about three months’ teaching he came tome one day with radiant countenance, and showed me a gold ring of his own making.

The fate of the little girl, who came with a second batch of children all ill of intermittent fever, a month or two after Sebastian, was very different. She was brought to our house, after landing, one night in the wet season, when the rain was pouring in torrents, thin and haggard, drenched with wet, and shivering with ague. An old Indian who brought her to the door, said briefly, “ecui encommenda” (here’s your little parcel, or order), and went away. ‘There was very little of the savage in her appearance, and she was of a much lighter colour than the boy. We found she was of the Mirdnha tribe, all of whom are distinguished by a slit, cut in the middle of each wing of the nose, in which they wear on their holiday occasions a large button made of pearly river-shell. We took the greatest care of our little patient; had the best nurses in the town, fomented her daily, gave her quinine and the most nourishing food; but it was all of no avail: she sank rapidly; her liver was enormously swollen, and almost as hard to the touch as stone. There was something uncommonly pleasing in her ways, and quite unlike anything I had yet seen in Indians. Instead of being dull and taciturn, she was always smiling and full of talk. We had an old woman of the same tribe to attend her, who explained what she said to us. She often begged to be taken to the river to bathe; asked for fruit, or coveted articles she saw in the room for playthings. Her native name was Oria. The last week or two she could not rise from the bed we had made for her in a dry corner of the room: when she wanted lifting, which was very often, she would allow no one to help her but me, calling me by the name of “ Cariwa” (white man), the only word of Tupi she seemed to know. It was inexpressibly touching to hear her, as she lay, repeating by the hour the verses which she had heen taught to recite with her companions in her native village: a few sentences repeated over and over again with a rhythmic accent, and relating to objects and incidents connected with the wild life of her tribe. We had her baptised before she died, and when this latter event happened, in opposition to the wishes of the big people of Ega I insisted on burying her with the same honours as a child of the whites; that is, as an “‘anjinho ” (little angel), according to the pretty Roman Catholic custora

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