244 EXCURSIONS AROUND EGA. Chap. IV. 



they believed in a Creator of all things ; a future state 

 of rewards and punishments, and so forth. These 

 notions are so far in advance of the ideas of all other 

 tribes of Indians, and so little likely to have been con- 

 ceived and perfected by a people having no written 

 language or leisured class, that we must suppose them 

 to have been derived by the docile Passes from some 

 early missionary or traveller. I never found that the 

 Passes had more curiosity or activity of intellect than 

 other Indians. No trace of a belief in a future state 

 exists amongst Indians who have not had much inter- 

 course with the civilised settlers, and even amongst 

 those who have it is only a few of the more gifted indi- 

 viduals who show any curiosity on the subject. Their 

 sluggish minds seem unable to conceive or feel the want 

 of a theory of the soul, and of the relations of man to 

 the Creator or the rest of Nature. But is it not so with 

 totally uneducated and isolated people even in the most 

 highly civilised parts of the world ? The good qualities 

 of the Passes belong to the moral part of the character : 

 they lead a contented, unambitious, and friendly life, a 

 quiet, domestic, orderly existence, varied by occasional 

 drinking bouts and summer excursions. They are not 

 so shrewd, energetic, and masterful as the Mundurucus, 

 but they are more easily taught, because their disposi- 

 tion is more yielding than that of the Mundurucus or 

 any other tribe. 



We started on our return to Ega at half-past four 

 o'clock in the afternoon. Our generous entertainers 

 loaded us with presents. There was scarcely room for us to 

 sit in the canoe, as they had sent down ten large bundles 



