Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/331

 to be exceedingly small and numerous in all cases where the filiation of races or species can be traced; and this circumstance may be held as confirming the truth of the axiom, "Natura non facit saltum," which has been impugned by some writers.

About two miles beyond this sand-bank was the miserable abode of a family of Mura Indians, the most degraded tribe inhabiting the banks of the Amazons. It was situated on a low terrace on the shores of a pretty little bay at the commencement of the high barreiros. With the exception of a cluster of bananas there were no fruit-trees or plantation of any description near the house. We saw in the bay several large alligators, with head and shoulders just reared above the level of the water. The house was a mere hovel; a thatch of palm-leaves supported on a slender framework of upright posts and rafters, bound with flexible lianas, and the walls were partially plastered up with mud. A low doorway led into the dark chamber; the bare earth floor was filthy in the extreme; and in a damp corner I espied two large toads whose eyes glittered in the darkness. The furniture consisted of a few low stools; there was no mat, and the hammock was a rudely woven web of ragged strips of the inner bark of the Mongúba tree. Bows and arrows hung from the smoke-blackened rafters. An ugly woman, clad in a coarse petticoat, and holding a child astride across her hip, sat crouched over a fire roasting the head of a large fish. Her husband was occupied in notching pieces of bamboo for arrow-heads. Both of them seemed rather disconcerted at our sudden entrance; we could get nothing but curt