240 EXCUKSIONS AROUND EGA. Chap. IY. 
spoons, the Indians using their fingers. The old man 
waited until we were all served before he himself com- 
menced. At the end of the meal, one of the women 
brought us water in a painted clay basin of Indian 
manufacture, and a clean but coarse cotton napkin, that 
we might wash our hands. 
The horde of Passes of which Pedro-uassu was 
Tushaua or chieftain, was at this time reduced to a very 
small number of individuals. The disease mentioned 
in the last chapter had for several generations made 
great havoc amongst them ; many, also, had entered the 
service of whites at Ega, and, of late years, intermar- 
riages with whites, half-castes, and civilised Indians 
had been frequent. The old man bewailed the fate of 
his race to Cardozo with tears in his eyes. " The people 
of my nation," he said, have always been good friends 
to the Carl was (whites), but before my grandchildren 
are old like me the name of Passe will be forgotten." 
In so far as the Passes have amalgamated with Euro- 
pean immigrants or their descendants, and become civi- 
lised Brazilian citizens, there can scarcely be ground for 
lamenting their extinction as a nation ; but it fills one 
with regret to learn how many die prematurely of a dis- 
ease which seems to arise on their simply breathing the 
same air as the whites. The original territory of the 
tribe must have been of large extent, for Passes are said 
to have been found by the early Portuguese colonists 
on the Pio Negro ; an ancient settlement on that river, 
Barcellos, having been peopled by them when it was 
first established ; and they formed also part of the origi- 
nal population of Fonte-boa on the Solimoens. Their 
