Char VII. MURA INDIANS. 325 



large fish were roasting over a fire made in the middle 

 of the low chamber, and the entrails were scattered 

 about the floor, on which the women with their children 

 were squatted. These had a timid, distrustful expres- 

 sion of countenance, and their bodies were begrimed 

 with black mud, which is smeared over the skin as a 

 protection against musquitoes. The children were 

 naked, the women wore petticoats of coarse cloth, 

 ragged round the edges, and stained in blotches with 

 murixi, a dye made from the bark of a tree. One of 

 them wore a necklace of monkey's teeth. There were 

 scarcely any household utensils ; the place was bare 

 mth the exception of two dirty grass hammocks hung 

 in the corners. I missed the usual mandioca sheds 

 behind the house, with their surrounding cotton, cacao, 

 coffee, and lemon trees. Two or three young men of 

 the tribe were lounging about the low open doorway. 

 They were stoutly-built fellows, but less well-propor- 

 tioned than the semi-civilised Indians of the Lower 

 Amazons generally are. Their breadth of chest was 

 remarkable, and their arms were wonderfully thick and 

 muscular. The legs appeared short in proportion to the 

 trunk ; the expression of their countenances was unmis- 

 takeably more sullen and brutal, and the skin of a 

 darker hue than is common in the Brazilian red man. 

 Before we left the hut, an old couple came in ; the 

 husband carrying his paddle, bow, arrows, and harpoon, 

 the woman bent beneath the weight of a large basket 

 filled with palm fruits. The man was of low stature and 

 had a wild appearance from the long coarse hair which 

 hung over his forehead. Both his lips were pierced 



