On the banks of the Purus we find the Purupurus, who are almost all afflicted with a cutaneous disease, consisting in the body being spotted and blotched with white, brown, or nearly black patches of irregular size and shape, and having a very disagreeable appearance. When young their skins are clear, but as they grow up they invariably become more or less spotted. Their houses are of the rudest construction, like those of our gipsies, and so small as to be set up on the sandy beaches and carried away in their canoes whenever they wish to move. These canoes are likewise extremely primitive, having a flat bottom and upright sides--a mere square box, and quite unlike those of all other Indians. But what distinguishes them yet more from their neighbours is that they use neither the blow-pipe nor bow and arrow, but have an instrument called a ‘palheta,’ which is a piece of wood with a projection at the end, to secure the base of the arrow, the middle of which is held with the handle of the palheta in the hand, and thus thrown as from a sling; they have a surprising dexterity in the use of this weapon, and with it readily kill game, birds, and fish. They sleep in their houses, on the sandy beaches, making no hammocks nor clothing of any kind; they make no fire in their houses, which are too small, but are kept warm in the night by the number of persons in them. In the wet season, when the banks of the river are all flooded, they construct rafts of trunks of trees bound together with creepers, and on them erect their huts, and live there till the waters fall again, when they guide their raft to the first sandy beach that appears. In the country between the Tapajoz and the Madeira, among the labyrinths of lakes and channels of the great island of the Tupinambranos, reside the Mandrucus, the most warlike Indians of the Amazons. These are probably the only perfectly tattooed nation in South America. The markings are extended all over the body; they are produced by pricking with the spines of a palm, and rubbing in the soot from burning pitch, to produce an indelible bluish tinge. They build their houses with mud walls in regular villages, and, though very agricultural, make war every year with an adjoining tribe, the Parentintins, taking the women and children for slaves, and preserving the dried heads of the men in a large building or barrack, where all the men sleep at night, armed with their bows and arrows ready in case of alarm. One of the singular facts connected with these Indians of the Amazons valley is the resemblance which exists between some of their customs and those of nations most remote from them.