Chap. YII. INDIAN GIRL. 279 



advantageous terms, so a bargain was struck, and the 

 man saved his long journey. The negro seemed a frank, 

 straightforward fellow ; he was a native of Pernambuco, 

 but had settled many years ago in this part of the 

 country. He had with him a little Indian girl belonging 

 to the Mauhes tribe, whose native seat is the district of 

 country lying in the rear of the Canoma, between the 

 Madeira and the Tapajos. The Maiihes are considered, 

 I think with truth, to be a branch of the great Mundu- 

 rucu nation, having segregated from them at a remote 

 period, and by long isolation acquired different customs 

 and a totally different language, in a manner Avhich 

 seems to have been general with the Brazilian abori- 

 gines. The Mundurucus seem to have retained more 

 of the general characteristics of the original Tupi stock 

 than the Mauhes. Senhor Lima told me, what I after- 

 wards found to be correct, that there w^ere scarcely two 

 words alike in the languages of the two peoples, although 

 there are words closely allied to Tupi in both.* The 

 little girl had not the slightest trace of the savage in 

 her appearance. Her features were finely shaped, the 

 cheek-bones not at all prominent, the lips thin, and the 

 expression of her countenance frank and smiling. She 

 had been brought only a few weeks previously from a 

 remote settlement of her tribe on the banks of the 

 Abacaxi, and did not yet know five words of Portuguese. 

 The Indians, as a general rule, are very manageable 

 when they are young, but it is a general complaint that 



* Thus the word Woman, in Mauhe, is Unilia ; in Tupi, Cunha ; 

 in ^lundumcu, Taishi. Fire in Mauhe, is Arid ; in Tupi, Tata ; in 

 Mundurucii, Idasha or Tashd. 



