Like other Americanist writers, Hudson relies on stereotypes to create tension and drama in his novel.  Unlike Haggard, who tries to offer a balanced view of the Aztecs in Montezuma's Daughter, Hudson portrays Amazonian Indians as savage and little else.  More specifically, Hudson represents Kua-Ko as a sort of self aggrandizing simpleton, one easily impressed by the trinkets of European trade.  We this when Abel bribes Kua-Ko to enter the forbidden wood.
    In Hudson's fiction, Abel's superiority over figures like Kua-Ko and his chief Runi comes mainly from his weaponry and his use of reason--the harbinger of Enlightenment thought.  When faced with their superstitions, Abel calmly takes inventory of a dangerous situation in order to assess risk.
Nuflo, in Hudson's imagination, represents the mestizo of Americanist discourse.  He appears kind, generous, pious, yet somehow dirty, untrustworthy.  He claims to eat no meat, but the ever-intuitive Abel detects a lie.
    For her part, Rima is the fairest of the fair, a rare descendant of some long lost aboriginal people.  She is nearly devoid of racial characteristics and instead seems to be bird-like, animal-like, or at best child-like.  She is, however, true to the patriarchal fantasy of obedience, purity, and graciousness.