Chap. IV. INDIAN DWELLINGS. 233 



He seemed to have many questions to ask : but they 

 were chiefly about Senhora Felippa, Cardozo's Indian 

 housekeeper at Ega, and were purely complimentary. 

 This studied politeness is quite natural to Indians of 

 the advanced agricultural tribes. The language used 

 was Tupi : I heard no other spoken all the day. It 

 must be borne in mind that Pedro-uassti had never 

 had much intercourse with whites : he was, although 

 baptised, a primitive Indian, who had always lived in 

 retirement ; the ceremony of baptism having been gone 

 through, as it generally is by the aborigines, simply 

 from a wish to stand well with the whites. 



Arrived at the house, we were welcomed by Pedro's 

 wife : a thin, wrinkled, active old squaw, tattooed in 

 precisely the same way as her husband. She had also 

 sharp features, but her manner was more cordial and 

 quicker than that of her husband : she talked much, and 

 with great inflection of voice ; whilst the tones of the old 

 man were rather drawling and querulous. Her clothing- 

 was a long petticoat of thick cotton cloth, and a very 

 short chemise, not reaching to her waist. I was rather 

 surprised to find the grounds around the establishment 

 in neater order than in any sitio, even of civilised 

 people, I had yet seen on the Upper Amazons : the 

 stock of utensils and household goods of all sorts was 

 larger, and the evidences of regular industry and 

 plenty more numerous than one usually perceives in the 

 farms of civilised Indians and whites. The buildings 

 were of the same construction as those of the humbler 

 settlers in all other parts of the country. The family 

 lived in a large, oblong, open shed built under the 



