194 THE UPPER AMAZONS. Chap. III. 



and other tributaries always fall ill on descending to 

 the Sohmoens, whilst the reverse takes place with the 

 inhabitants of the banks of the main river, who never 

 fail of taking intermittent fever when they first ascend 

 these branch rivers, and of getting well when they 

 return. The finest tribes of savages who inhabit the 

 country near Ega are the Juris and Passes : these are 

 now, however, nearly extinct, a few families only re- 

 maining on the banks of the retired creeks connected 

 with the Teffe, and on other branch rivers between the 

 Teffe and the Jutahi. They are a peaceable, gentle, 

 and industrious people, devoted to agriculture and 

 fishing, and have always been friendly to the whites. 

 I shall have occasion to speak again of the Passes, who 

 are a slenderly-built and superior race of Indians, dis- 

 tinguished by a large, square tattooed patch in the 

 middle of their faces. The principal cause of their 

 decay in numbers seems to be a disease which always 

 appears amongst them when a village is visited by 

 people from the civilised settlements — a slow fever, 

 accompanied by the symptoms of a common cold, 

 " defluxo," as the Brazilians term it, ending probably 

 in consumption. The disorder has been known to break 

 out when the visitors were entirely free from it ; the 

 simple contact of civilised men, in some mysterious way 

 being sufficient to create it. It is generally fatal to the 

 Juris and Passes : the first question the poor, patient 

 Indians now put to an advancing canoe is, " Do you 

 bring defluxo ? " 



My assistant, Jose, in the last year of my residence at 

 Ega, "resgatou" (ransomed, the euphemism in use for pur- 



