On the 23rd of May, 1850, I visited, in company with Antonio Cardozo, the Delegado, a family of the Passé tribe, who live near the head waters of the Igarapé, which flows from the south into the Teffé, entering it at Ega. The creek is more than a quarter of a mile broad near the town, but a few miles inland it gradually contracts, until it becomes a mere rivulet flowing through a broad dell in the forest. When the river rises, it fills the dell; the trunks of the lofty trees then stand many feet deep in the water, and small canoes are able to travel the distance of a day’s journey under the shade, regular paths or alleys being cut through the branches and lower trees. This is the general character of the country of the Upper Amazons; a land of small elevation and abruptly undulated, the hollows forming narrow valleys in the dry months, and deep navigable creeks in the wet months. In retired nooks on the margins of these shady rivulets, a few families or small hordes of aborigines still linger in nearly their primitive state, the relics of their once numerous tribes. The family we intended to visit on this trip, was that of Pedro-uassti (Peter the Great or tall Peter), an old chieftain or Tushatia of the Passés.

We set out at sunrise, in a small igarité, manned by six young Indian paddlers. After travelling about three miles along the broad portion of the creek—which, being surrounded by woods, had the appearance of a large pool—we came to a part where our course seemed to be stopped by an impenetrable hedge of trees and bushes. We were some time before finding the entrance, but when fairly within the shades, a remarkable scene presented itself. It was my first introduction to these singular water-paths. A narrow and tolerably straight alley stretched away for a long distance before us: on each side were the tops of bushes and young trees, forming a kind of border to the path, and the trunks of the tall forest trees rose at irregular intervals from the water, their crowns interlocking far over our heads, and forming a thick shade. Slender air roots hung down in clusters, and looping sipds dangled from the lower branches; bunches of grass, tillandsiz, and ferns, sat in the forks of the larger boughs, and the trunks of trees near the water had adhering to them round dried masses of fresh-water sponges. ‘There was no current perceptible, and the water was stained of a dark olive-brown hue, but the submerged stems could be seen through it to a great depth. We travelled at good speed for three hours along this shady road; the distance of Pedro’s house from Ega being about twenty miles. When the paddlers rested for a time, the stillness and gloom of the place became almost painful: our voices waked dull echoes as we conversed, and the noise made by fishes occasionally whipping the surface of the water was quite startling. A cool, moist, clammy air pervaded the sunless shade.

The breadth of the wooded valley, at the commencement, is probably more than half a mile, and there is a tolerably clear view for a considerable distance on each side of the water-path through the irregular colonnade of trees: other paths also, in this part, branch off right and left from the principal road, leading to the scattered houses of Indians

on the mainland. The dell contracts gradually towards the head of the rivulet, and the forest then becomes denser; the water-path also diminishes in width, and becomes more winding on account of the closer growth of the trees. The boughs of some are stretched forth at no great height over one’s head, and are seen to be loaded with epiphytes; one orchid I noticed particularly, on account of its bright yellow flowers growing at the end of flower-stems several feet long. Some of the trunks, especially those of palms, close beneath their crowns, were clothed with a thick mass of glossy shield-shaped Pothos plants, mingled with ferns. Arrived at this part we were, in fact, in the heart of the virgin forest. We heard no noises of animals in the trees, and saw only one bird, the sky-blue chatterer, sitting alone on a high branch. For some distance the lower vegetation was so dense that the road runs under an arcade of foliage, the branches having been cut away only sufficiently to admit of the passage of a small canoe. ‘These thickets are formed chiefly of bamboos, whose slender foliage and curving stems arrange themselves in elegant feathery bowers: but other social plants, slender green climbers with tendrils so eager in aspiring to grasp the higher boughs that they seem to be endowed almost with animal energy, and certain low trees having large elegantly-veined leaves, contribute also to the jungly masses. Occasionally we came upon an uprooted tree lying across the path, its voluminous crown still held up by thick cables of sipd, connecting it with standing trees: a wide circuit had to be made in these cases, and it was sometimes difficult to find the right path again.

At length we arrived at our journey’s end. We were then in a very dense and gloomy part of the forest: we could see, however, the dry land on both sides of the creek, and to our right a small sunny opening appeared, the landing-place to the native dwellings. The water was deep close to the bank, and a clean pathway ascended from the shady port to the buildings, which were about a furlong distant. My friend Cardozo was godfather to a grandchild of Pedro-uassu, whose daughter had married an Indian settler in Ega. He had sent word to the old man that he intended to visit him: we were therefore expected.

As we landed, Pedro-uasst' himself came down to the port to receive us; our arrival having been announced by the barking of dogs. He was a tall and thin old man, with a serious but benignant expression of countenance, and a manner much freer from shyness and distrust than is usual with Indians. He was clad in a shirt of coarse cotton cloth, dyed with murishi, and trousers of the same material turned up to the knee. His features were sharply delineated—more so than in any Indian face I had yet seen; the lips thin and the nose rather high and compressed. A large, square, blue-black tattooed patch occupied the middle of his face, which, as weli as the other exposed parts of his body, was of a light reddish-tan colour, instead of the usual coppery-brown hue. He walked with an upright, slow gait, and on reaching us saluted Cardozo with the air of a man who wished it to be understood that he was dealing with an equal. My friend introduced me, and I was welcomed in the same grave, ceremonious manner. He seemed to have many questions to ask: but they were chiefly about Senhora Felippa, Car-

dozo’s Indian housekeeper at Ega, and were purely complimentary. This studied politeness is quite natural to Indians of the advanced agricultural tribes. ‘The language used was Tupi: I heard no other spoken all the day. It must be borne in mind that Pedro-uasst had never had much intercourse with whites: he was, although baptised, a primitive Indian, who had always lived in retirement; the ceremony of baptism having been gone through, as it generally is by the aborigines, simply from a wish to stand well with the whites.

Arrived at the house, we were welcomed by Pedro’s wife: a thin, wrinkled, active old squaw, tattooed in precisely the same way as her husband. She had also sharp features, but her manner was more cordial and quicker than that of her husband; she talked much and with great inflection of voice; whilst the tones of the old man were rather drawling and querulous. Her clothing was a long petticoat of thick cotton cloth, and a very short chemise, not reaching to her waist. I was rather surprised to find the grounds around the establishment in neater order than in any sitio, even of civilised people, I had yet seen on the Upper Amazons: the stock of utensils and household goods of all sorts was larger, and the evidences of regular industry and plenty more numerous than one usually perceives in the farms of civilised Indians and whites. The buildings were of the same construction as those of the humbler settlers in all other parts of the country. The family lived in a large, oblong, open shed built under the shade of trees. Two smaller buildings, detached from the shed, and having mud walls with low doorways, contained apparently the sleeping apartments of different members of the large household. A small mill for grinding sugar-cane, having two cylinders of hard notched wood; wooden troughs, and kettles for boiling the guardpa (cane juice), to make treacle, stood under a separate shed, and near it was a large enclosed mud-house for poultry. There was another hut and shed a short distance off, inhabited by a family dependent on Pedro, and a narrow pathway through the luxuriant woods led to more dwellings of the same kind. There was an abundance of fruit trees around the place, including the never-failing banana, with its long, broad, soft green leaf-blades, and groups of full grown Pupinhas, or peach palms. There was also a large number of cotton and coffee trees. Amongst the utensils I noticed baskets of different shapes, made of flattened maranta stalks, and dyed various colours. The making of these is an original art of the Passés, but I believe it is also practised by other tribes, for I saw several in the houses of semi-civilised Indians on the Tapajos.

There were only three persons in the house besides the old couple, the rest of the people being absent; several came in, however, in the course of the day. One was a daughter of Pedro’s, who had an oval tattooed spot over her mouth; the second was a young grandson; and the third the son-in-law from Ega, Cardozo’s compadre. The old woman was occupied, when we entered, in distilling spirits from card, an eatable root similar to the potato, by means of a clay still, which had been manufactured by herself. The liquor had a reddish tint, but not a very agreeable flavour. A cup of it, warm from the still, however, was welcome after our long journey. Cardozo liked it, emptied his cup, and

replenished it in a very short time. The old lady was very talkative, and almost fussy in her desire to please her visitors. We sat in tacim hammocks, suspended between the upright posts of the shed. The young woman with the blue mouth—who, although married, was as shy as any young maiden of her race—soon became employed in scalding and plucking fowls for the dinner, near the fire on the ground at the other end of the dwelling. The son-in-law, Pedro-uassi, and Cardozo now began a long conversation on the subject of their deceased wife, daughter, and comadre.* It appeared she had died of consumption— “tisica,” as they called it, a word adopted by the Indians from the Portuguese. The widower repeated over and over again, in nearly the same words, his account of her illness, Pedro chiming in like a chorus, and Cardoza moralising and condoling. I thought the cawim (grog) had a good deal to do with the flow of talk and warmth of feeling of all three: the widower drank and wailed until he became maundering, and finally fell asleep. I left them talking, and went along ramble into the forest, Pedro sending his grandson, a smiling well-behaved lad of about fourteen years of age, to show me the paths, my companion taking with him his

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