160 
THE UPPER. AMAZONS. 
Chap. III. 
trait in Indians that the habits of these people are 
remarked on with surprise by the Brazilians. The first 
possession which they strive to acquire on descending 
the river into Brazil, which all the Peruvian Indians 
look upon as a richer country than their own, is a wooden 
trunk with lock and key ; in this they stow away care- 
fully all their earnings converted into clothing, hatchets, 
knives, harpoon heads, needles and thread, and so forth. 
Their wages are only fourpence or sixpence a day, 
which are often paid in goods charged a hundred per 
cent, above Para prices, so that it takes them a long 
time to fill their chest. 
It would be difficult to find a better-behaved set of 
men in a voyage than these poor Indians. During our 
thirty-five days' journey they lived and worked toge- 
ther in the most perfect good fellowship. I never heard 
an angry word pass amongst them. Senhor Estulano 
let them navigate the vessel in their own way, exerting 
his authority only now and then when they were in- 
clined to be lazy. Vicente regulated the working hours. 
These depended on the darkness of the nights. In the 
first and second quarters of the moon they kept it up 
with espia, or oars, until towards midnight; in the third 
and fourth quarters they were allowed to go to sleep 
soon after sunset, and aroused at three or four o'clock 
in the morning to resume their work. On cool, rainy 
days we all bore a hand at the espia, trotting with bare 
feet on the sloppy deck in Indian file to the tune of 
some wild boatman's chorus. We had a favourable 
wind for two days only out of the thirty-five, by which' 
we made about forty miles ; the rest of our long journey 
