Their huts--houses they could scarcely be called--were of the rudest kind. The stems of young trees and poles stuck in the ground, are bent at the top and tied together, and then a covering of cocoa or patioba leaves was laid on. These huts were very flat and low. Near each of them was a sort of grate, consisting of four prongs stuck in the ground, on which were laid four sticks, and these were crossed by others laid pretty close, for the purpose of roasting or broiling their game. Their weapons were bows and arrows, and many of the tribes had the art of poisoning their arrows. This appeared to be almost the only art they had discovered. Nor had they any manufactures; for their uncouth ornaments evinced so little design or industry in their formation, that they are hardly worth naming. The women wore beads made of hard berries, or the teeth of animals, and sometimes bunches of feathers in their ears. Both sexes occasionally painted their bodies black and their faces red. The men wore round their neck, attached to a strong cord, their most precious jewel, a knife. Before the settlement of Europeans this was made of bone, or stone. They had no canoes nor any notion of navigation; and some historians assert that they could not swim. Their religious ideas were of the grossest kind. They believed in malignant demons, great and small, and were afraid to pass the night in the forest alone. They held the moon in high veneration, and thought her influence caused the thunder and lightning. They had a tradition of a general deluge; but they had no distinct idea or hope of a future state. From this dreadful ignorance and degradation, many of the tribes, or the remnants of them rather, are now in some measure redeemed. The labors of missionaries, and the exertions of the government, are still directed to the improvement of the Indian subjects of the emperor of Brazil; and though they are still very ignorant and very indolent, it is greatly to the praise of the Portuguese inhabitants of South America, that they have not made the natives of the country they have conquered, worse than they found them. [1] See Southey’s History of Brazil. [2] See Walsh’s Notices of Brazil. [3] See Mrs. Graham’s Journal of a Voyage to Brazil. [4] See Walsh’s Notices of Brazil. The Voyages, Travels, and Experiences of Thomas Trotter. CHAPTER XV. _Detention at Lipari.--Passage to Naples in a felucca.--Prospect of the Bay of Naples.--Novel sensations on landing in the city.--Strange appearances in the streets.--View of the city from the hill of St. Elmo.--Lively manners of the Neapolitans._