244 
EXCURSIONS AROUND EGA. 
Chap. IY. 
they believed in a Creator of all things ; a future state 
of rewards and punishments, and so forth. These 
notions are so far in advance of the ideas of all other 
tribes of Indians, and so little likely to have been con- 
ceived and perfected by a people having no written 
language or leisured class, that we must suppose them 
to have been derived by the docile Passes from some 
early missionary or traveller. I never found that the 
Passes had more curiosity or activity of intellect than 
other Indians. No trace of a belief in a future state 
exists amongst Indians who have not had much inter- 
course with the civilised settlers, and even amongst 
those who have it is only a few of the more gifted indi- 
viduals who show any curiosity on the subject. Their 
sluggish minds seem unable to conceive or feel the want 
of a theory of the soul, and of the relations of man to 
the Creator or the rest of Nature. But is it not so with 
totally uneducated and isolated people even in the most 
highly civilised parts of the world ? The good qualities 
of the Passes belong to the moral part of the character : 
they lead a contented, unambitious, and friendly life, a 
quiet, domestic, orderly existence, varied by occasional 
drinking bouts and summer excursions. They are not 
so shrewd, energetic, and masterful as the Munduructis, 
but they are more easily taught, because their disposi- 
tion is more yielding than that of the Mundurucus or 
any other tribe. 
We started on our return to Ega at half-past four 
o'clock in the afternoon. Our generous entertainers 
loaded.us with presents. There was scarcely room for us to 
sit in the canoe, as they had sent down ten large bundles 
