Chap. III. MENTAL TRAITS OF INDIANS. 
161 
was accomplished literally by pulling our way from 
tree to tree. When we encountered a remanso near 
the shore we got along very pleasantly for a few 
miles by rowing ; but this was a rare occurrence. 
During leisure hours the Indians employed themselves 
in sewing. Vicente was a good hand at cutting 
out shirts and trousers, and acted as master tailor to 
the whole party. Each had a thick steel thimble and 
a stock of needles and thread of his own. Vicente 
made for me a set of blue-check cotton shirts during 
the passage. 
The goodness of these Indians, like that of most 
others amongst whom I lived, consisted perhaps more 
in the absence of active bad qualities, than in the pos- 
session of good ones ; in other words, it was negative 
rather than positive. Their phlegmatic, apathetic tem- 
perament ; coldness of desire and deadness of feeling ; 
want of curiosity and slowness of intellect, make the 
Amazonian Indians very uninteresting companions any- 
where. Their imagination is of a dull, gloomy quality, 
and they seem never to be stirred by the • emotions : — 
love, pity, admiration, fear, wonder^ joy, enthusiasm. 
These are characteristics of the whole race. The 
good fellowship of our Cucamas seemed to arise, not 
from warm sympathy, but simply from the absence of 
eager selfishness in small matters. On the morning 
when the favourable wind sprung up, one of the 
crew, a lad of about seventeen years of age, was 
absent ashore at the time of starting, having gone 
alone in one of the montarias to gather wild fruit. 
The sails were spread and we travelled for several 
VOL. II. M 
