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258 UPPER AMAZONS—VOYAGE TO EGA. Cuap. X. 
and this did not come within hail, as it was drifting down in the middle 
of the current in a broad part of the river two miles from the bank along 
which we were laboriously warping our course upwards. 
After the first two or three days we fell into a regular way of life 
aboard. Our crew was composed of ten Indians of the Cucdma nation, 
whose native country is a portion of the borders of the upper river, 
in the neighbourhood of Nauta, in Peru. The Cucdmas speak the 
Tupf language, using, however, a harsher accent than is common 
amongst the semi-civilised Indians from Ega downwards. They are a 
shrewd, hard-working people, and. are the only Indians who willingly 
and in a body engage themselves to navigate the canoes of traders. 
The pilot, a steady and faithful fellow named Vicente, told me that he 
and his companions had now been fifteen months absent from their wives 
and families, and that on arriving at Ega they intended to take the first 
chance of a passage to Nauta. There was nothing in the appearance of 
these men to distinguish them from canoe-men in general. Some were 
tall and well built, others had squat figures with broad shoulders and 
excessively thick arms and legs. No two of them were at all similar in 
the shape of the head: Vicente had an oval visage, with fine regular 
features, whilst a little dumpy fellow, the wag of the party, was quite a 
Mongolian in breadth and prominence of cheek, spread of nostrils, and 
obliquity of eyes; but these two formed the extremes as to face and 
figure. None of them were tattooed or disfigured in any way ; and they 
were all quite destitute of beard. ‘The Cucdmas are notorious on the 
river for their provident habits. The desire of acquiring property is so 
rare a trait in Indians, that the habits of these people are remarked on 
with surprise by the Brazilians. . The first possession which they strive 
to acquire, on descending the river into Brazil, which all the Peruvian 
Indians look upon as a richer country than their own, is a wooden 
trunk with lock and key; in this they stow away carefully all their 
earnings converted into clothing, hatchets, knives, harpoon heads, 
needles and thread, and so forth. Their wages are only fourpence or 
sixpence a day, which are often paid in goods charged a hundred per 
cent. above Para prices, so that it takes them a long time to fill their 
chest. 
It would be difficult to find a better-behaved set of men on a voyage 
than these poor Indians. During our thirty-five days’ journey they 
lived and worked together in the most perfect good fellowship. I never 
heard an angry word pass amongst them. Senhor Estulano let them 
navigate the vessel in their own way, exerting his authority only now 
and then when they were inclined to be lazy. Vicente regulated the 
working hours. These depended on the darkness of the nights. In 
the first and second quarters of the moon they kept it up with esgza, or 
oars, until towards midnight ; in the third and fourth quarters they were 
allowed to go to sleep soon after sunset, and aroused at three or four 
o’clock in the morning to resume their work. On cool, rainy days we 
all bore a hand at the esfza, trotting with bare feet on the sloppy deck 
in Indian file, to the tune of some wild boatman’s chorus. We had a 
favourable wind for two days only out of the thirty-five, by which we made 
about forty miles ; the rest of our long journey was accomplished literally 
