266 A JOURNEY IN BRAZIL. . 
is passed with the cross thread, which is then pushed down 
and straightened in its place by means of the same piece 
of wood. After we had rested for a while, hammocks 
of various color and texture being immediately brought 
and hung up for our accommodation, the gentlemen went 
down to bathe in the igarape, while the Senhora and her 
daughter, a very pretty Indian woman, showed me tho 
rest of the establishment. The elder of the two had the 
direction of everything now, as the master of the house 
was absent, having a captain's commission in the army. 
In the course of our conversation I was reminded of a 
social feature which strikes us as the more extraordi- 
nary the longer we remain on the Amazons, on account 
of its generality. Here were people of gentle condition, 
although of Indian blood, lifted above everything like 
want, living in comfort and, as compared with people 
about them, with a certain affluence,- -people from whom, 
therefore, in any other society, you might certainly expect 
a knowledge of the common rules of morality. Yet when 
I was introduced to the daughter, and naturally asked 
something about her father, supposing him to be the absent 
captain, the mother answered, smiling, quite as a matter 
of course, " Nao tern pai ; e filha da fortuna," "She 
has n't any father ; she is the daughter of chance." In 
the same way, when the daughter showed me two children 
of her own,- -little fair people, many shades lighter than 
herself, and I asked whether their father was at the war, 
like all the rest of the men, she gave me the same answer, 
" They have n't any father." It is the way the Indian or 
half-breed women here always speak of their illegitimate 
children ; and though they say it without an intonation of 
sadness or of blame, apparently as unconscious of any 
