298 EXCURSIONS IN NEIGHBOURHOOD OF EGA. Cuap. Xl. 
manner; such as the Juris, Uainumds, Shumdnas, Aratias, and 
Tucunas. The extinct tribe of Yurimatias, or Soriméas, from which the 
river Solimoens derives its name, according to traditions extant at Ega, 
resembled the Passés in their slender figures and friendly disposition. 
These tribes (with others lying between them) peopled the banks of the 
main river and its by-streams from the mouth of the Rio Negroto Peru. 
True Passés existed in their primitive state on the banks of the Issé, 
240 miles to the west of Ega, within the memory of living persons. 
The only large body of them now extant are located on the Japurd, at a 
place distant about 150 miles from Ega: the population of this horde, 
however, does not exceed, from what I could learn, 300 or 400 persons. 
I think it probable that the lower part of the Japurd and its ex- 
tensive delta lands formed the original home of this gentle tribe of 
Indians. 
The Passés are always spoken of in this country as the most advanced 
of all the Indian nations in the Amazons region. I saw altogether 
about thirty individuals of the tribe, and found them generally dis- 
tinguishable from other Indians by their lighter colour, sharper features, 
and more open address. But these points of distinction were not 
invariable, for I saw individuals of the Juri and Mirdnha tribes from the 
Upper Japura ; of the Catoquinos, who inhabit the banks of the Jurtia, 
300 miles from its mouth; and of the Tuctinas of St. Paulo, who were 
scarcely distinguishable from Passés in all the features mentioned. It 
is remarkable that a small tribe, the Caishanas, who live in the very 
midst of all these superior tribes, are almost as debased physically and 
mentally as the Muras, the lowest of all the Indian tribes on the 
Amazons. Yet were they seen separately, many Caishanas could not be 
distinguished from Miranhas or Juris, although none have such slender 
figures or are so frank in their ways as to be mistaken for Passés. I 
make these remarks to show that the differences Detween the nations or 
tribes of Indians are not absolute, and therefore that there is no 
ground for supposing any of them to have had an origin entirely 
different from the rest. Under what influences certain tribes, such as 
the Passés, have become so strongly modified in mental, social, and 
bodily features it is hard to divine. ‘The industrious habits, fidelity, 
and mildness of disposition of the Passés, their docility, and, it may be 
added, their personal beauty, especially of the children and women, 
made them from the first very attractive to the Portuguese colonists. 
They were, consequently, enticed in great numbers from their villages, 
and brought to Barra and other settlements of the whites. The wives 
of governors and military officers from Europe were always eager to 
obtain children for domestic servants: the girls being taught to sew, 
cook, weave hammocks, manufacture pillow-lace, and so forth. They 
have been generally treated with kindness, especially by the educated 
families in the settlements. It is pleasant to have to record that I 
never heard of a deed of violence perpetrated, on the one side or the 
other, in the dealings between European settlers and this noble tribe of 
savages. 
Very little is known of the original customs of the Passés. The 
mode of life of our host Pedro-uasst did not differ much from that of 
