Cuap, IX. MENTAL CONDITION OF INDIANS. 247 
primitive condition. I believe he thinks of nothing except the matters 
that immediately concern his daily material wants. There is an almost 
total absence of curiosity in his mental disposition, consequently he 
troubles himself very little concerning the causes of the natural 
phenomena around him. He has no idea of a Supreme Being ; but, at 
the same time, he is free from revolting superstitions—his religious 
notions going no farther than the belief in an evil spirit, regarded merely 
as a kind of hobgoblin, who is at the bottom of all his little failures, 
troubles in fishing, hunting and so forth. With so little mental activity, 
and with feelings and passions slow of excitement, the life of these 
people is naturally monotonous and dull, and their virtues are, properly 
speaking, only negative ; but the picture of harmless homely contentment 
they exhibit is very pleasing, compared with the state of savage races in 
many other parts of the world. 
The men awoke me at four o’clock with the sound of their oars on 
leaving the port of the Tushatia. I was surprised to find a dense fog 
veiling all surrounding objects, and the air quite cold. The lofty wall 
of forest, with the beautiful crowns of Assai palms standing out from it 
on their slender, arching stems, looked dim and strange through the 
misty curtain. The sudden change a little after sunrise had quite a 
magical effect ; for the mist rose up like the gauze veil before the trans- 
formation scene at a pantomime, and showed the glorious foliage in the 
bright glow of morning, glittering with dewdrops. We arrived at the 
falls about ten o’clock. ‘The river here is not more than forty yards 
broad, and falls over a low ledge of rock stretching in a nearly straight 
line across. 
We had now arrived at the end of the navigation for large vessels— 
a distance from the mouth of the river, according to a rough calculation, 
of a little over seventy miles. I found it the better course now to send 
José and one of the men forward in the montaria with Joao Aracu, and 
remain myself with the cuberta and our other men, to collect in the 
neighbouring forest. We stayed here four days; one of the boats 
returning each evening from the upper river with the produce of the 
day’s chase of my huntsmen. I obtained six good specimens of the 
hyacinthine macaw, besides a number of smaller birds, a species new to 
me of Guariba, or howling monkey, and two large lizards. The Guariba 
was an old male, with the hair much worn from his rump and breast, 
and his body disfigured with large tumours made by the grubs of a gad- 
fly (CEstrus). The back and tail were of a ruddy-brown colour; the 
limbs and underside of the body, black. The men ascended to the 
second falls, which form a cataract several feet in height, about fifteen 
miles beyond our anchorage. ‘The macaws were found feeding in small 
flocks on the fruit of the Tucuma palm (Astryocaryum Tucumda), the 
excessively hard nut of which is crushed into pulp by the powerful beak 
of the bird. I found the craws of all the specimens filled with the sour 
paste to which the stone-like fruit had been reduced. Each bird took 
me three hours to skin, and I was occupied with these and my other 
specimens every evening until midnight, after my own laborious day’s 
hunt ; working on the roof of my cabin by the light of a lamp. 
