194 
THE UPPER AMAZONS. 
Chap, III. 
and other tributaries always fall ill on descending to 
the Solitnoens, whilst the reverse takes place with the 
inhabitants of the banks of the main river, who never 
fail of taking intermittent fever when they first ascend 
these branch rivers, and of getting well Avhen they 
return. The finest tribes of savages who inhabit the 
country near Ega are the Juris and Passes : these are 
now, however, nearly extinct, a few families only re- 
maining on the banks of the retired creeks connected 
with the Tefife, and on other branch rivers between the 
Teffe and the Jutahi. They are a peaceable, gentle, 
and industrious people, devoted to agriculture and 
fishing, and have always been friendly to the whites. 
I shall have occasion to speak again of the Passes, who 
are a slenderly-built and superior race of Indians, dis- 
tingaished by a large, square tattooed patch in the 
middle of their faces. The principal cause of their 
decay in numbers seems to be a disease which always 
appears amongst them when a village is visited by 
people from the civilised settlements — a slow fever, 
accompanied by the symptoms of a common cold, 
''defluxo," as the Brazilians term it, ending probably 
in consumption. The disorder has been known to break 
out when the visitors were entirely free from it ; the 
simple contact of civilised men, in some mysterious way 
being sufficient to create it. It is generally fatal to the 
Jmis and Passes : the first question the poor, patient 
Indians now put to an advancing canoe is, ''Do you 
bring defluxo V 
My assistant, J ose, in the last year of my residence at 
Ega, "resgatou" (ransomed, the euphemism in use for pur- 
