Year: 1879

Mir. Herbert H. Smith, writing in Scribaer of An Indian Village on the Amazons," thus describes very inter- esting phase oftropical life:

 Child-life here is an exceedingly curi- ous study; the little quiet creatures are so different from our romping American boys and girls. They get few caresses and give none; mother-love is mechan- ical; there is nothing of that overflow of tenderness, the constant watchful care that sheds such halo around our homes. Tine babies vegetate in their steady brown fashion, seldom crying or laughing, but lying all day in their hammock cradles and watching every thing around them with keen eyes. As soon as the little boys and girls can tod de about they are left pretty much to their own resources, tumbling up the back stairs of life on ;i diet of mandioca meal and fish. The parents seldom pun ish their children, tor they are very do- cile; when they do the little ones pucker up their mouths and look sullen, but do not cry. Pleasure is expressed by smile-amOng the little girls very often by broad grin with abundant show of teeth-but an articulate laugh is rarity.

 It is interesting to watch how the mental traits of the race appear even in the young babies. If plaything is given them they examine it gravely for little while and then let it drop. Oh serve how different this is from a white baby's actions. A bright little six months-old at home has four distinct methods of investigation: first, by look ing; second, by touching; then by put ting the object in its mouth; and finally by banging it against the floor. The brown menino just looks; he does not investigate at all As the children grow older the same trait is apparent in al most every case. An Indian is content to see or hear a thing without troubling himself about the why's and wherefores; even such incomprehensible pursuits as fossil-collecting or butterfy-catching or sketching provoke hardly any curiosity. The people look on quietly, sometimes asking a question or two, but soon dis missing the subject from their minds as something they are incapable of under standing. With all the crowding to see the lady of our party hardly q person asked why she came. So, too, the babies are unambitious; they do not cry after pretty colors or stretch out their hands to a candle. And the men have no ap- parent desire to better their lot. They go on .iustas their fathers did; submit to the impositions of the whites, little sullenly, but without a thought of re- bellion, unless there is a white or a half breed to lead them. The children do not care much for playthings; we rarely see one with a rag doll; the little boys de- light in bows and arrows, but they take them as part of their training. Some times the people have dances in imita- ton of the fiesta sports, and we heal them humming the waltzes ano quadrilles which their quick ears have caught from the musicians. As an In dian will paddle steadily all day, while his wife at home hardly ceases her mo- notonous cotton beating, so the little ones have an inexhaustible gift O patience. Where white child would

 ret and cry, the brown one sits all day ! perfectly still, but watching everything around him. To see a little Indian bo, in canoe you would say that nOthin! of him was alive but his eyes.