“Two things are strongly impressed on the mind of the traveller in the Upper Amazons. The necessity, in the first place, of a larger population, and, secondly, of a better class of whites, before any fair beginning can be made in developing the resources of the country; and, as an inducement to this, the importance of taking off all restraint on the navigation of the Amazons and its tributaries, opening them to the ambition and competition of other nations. Not only is the white population too small for the task before it, but it is no less poor in quality than meagre in numbers. It presents the singular spectacle of a higher race receiving the impress of a lower one, of an educated class adopting the habits and sinking to the level of the savage. In the towns of the Solimoens the people who pass for the white gentry of the land, while they profit by the ignorance of the Indian to cheat and abuse him, nevertheless adopt his social habits, sit on the ground and eat with their fingers as he does. Although it is forbidden by law to enslave the Indian, there is a practical slavery by which he becomes as absolutely in the power of the master as if he could be bought and sold. The white man engages an Indian to work for him at a certain rate, at the same time promising to provide him with clothes and food until such time as he shall have earned enough to take care of himself. This outfit, in fact, costs the employer little; but when the Indian comes to receive his wages he is told that he is already in debt to his master for what has been advanced to him; instead of having a right to demand money, he owes work. The Indians, even those who live about the towns, are singularly ignorant of the true value of things. They allow themselves to be deceived in this way to an extraordinary extent, and remain bound to the service of a man for a lifetime, believing themselves under the burden of a debt, while they are, in fact, creditors. Besides this virtual slavery, an actual traffic of the Indians does go on: but it is so far removed from the power of the authorities that they cannot, if they would, put a stop to it. A better class of emigrants would suppress many of these evils. Americans or Englishmen might be sordid in their transactions with the natives; their hands are certainly not clean in their dealings with the dark-skinned races; but they would not degrade themselves to the social level of the Indians as the Portuguese do; they would not adopt his habits.”