162 
THE UPPER AMAZONS. Chap. III. 
hours at great speed, leaving the poor fellow to paddle 
after iis against the strong current. Vicente, who 
might have waited a few minutes at starting, and 
the others, only laughed when the hardship of their 
companion was alluded to. He overtook us at night, 
having woi-ked his way with frightful labour the 
whole day without a morsel of food. He grinned when 
he came on board, and not a dozen words were said on 
either side. 
Their want of curiosity is extreme. One day we had 
an unusually sharp thunder-shower. The crew were 
lying about the deck, and after each explosion all set up 
a loud laugh ; the wag of the party exclaiming There's 
my old uncle' hunting again ! " an expression showing 
the utter emptiness of mind of the spokesman. I asked 
Vicente what he thought was the cause of lightning and 
thunder ? He said, " Timaa ichoqua," — I don't know. 
He had never given the subject a moment's thought ! 
It was the same with other things. I asked him who 
made the sun, the stars, the trees ? He didn't know, 
and had never heard the subject mentioned amongst his 
tribe. The Tupi language, at least as taught by the old 
Jesuits, has a word — Tupana — signifying God. Vicente 
sometimes used this word, but he showed by his ex- 
pressions that he did not attach the idea of a Creator to 
it. He seemed to think it meant some deity or visible 
image which the whites worshipped in the churches he 
had seen in the villages. None of the Indian tribes on 
the Upper Amazons have an idea of a Supreme Being, 
and consequently have no word to express it in their 
own languages. Vicente thought the river on which we 
