Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/175

 was accomplished literally by pulling our way from tree to tree. When we encountered a remanso near the shore we got along very pleasantly for a few miles by rowing; but this was a rare occurrence. During leisure hours the Indians employed themselves in sewing. Vicente was a good hand at cutting out shirts and trousers, and acted as master tailor to the whole party. Each had a thick steel thimble and a stock of needles and thread of his own. Vicente made for me a set of blue-check cotton shirts during the passage.

The goodness of these Indians, like that of most others amongst whom I lived, consisted perhaps more in the absence of active bad qualities, than in the possession of good ones; in other words, it was negative rather than positive. Their phlegmatic, apathetic temperament; coldness of desire and deadness of feeling; want of curiosity and slowness of intellect, make the Amazonian Indians very uninteresting companions anywhere. Their imagination is of a dull, gloomy quality, and they seem never to be stirred by the emotions:—love, pity, admiration, fear, wonder, joy, enthusiasm. These are characteristics of the whole race. The good fellowship of our Cucámas seemed to arise, not from warm sympathy, but simply from the absence of eager selfishness in small matters. On the morning when the favourable wind sprung up, one of the crew, a lad of about seventeen years of age, was absent ashore at the time of starting, having gone alone in one of the montarias to gather wild fruit. The sails were spread and we travelled for several