Up the Mazaruni for Diamonds

CHAPTER X
IN THE INDIAN COUNTRY

OVER the Caburi Falls we found a broad expanse of still water, smooth and, while the current was fairly swift, by no means like the treacherous rapids below.

“Better navigating now, until almost up to the Big Bend, sir,” said Captain Peter.

The “Big Bend” was a name to conjure with for Lewis and me, for away up the Mazaruni were the diamonds, where the river makes a sharp bend and begins to almost double in its tracks. This is due to the hilly formation and the lowlands between the hills.

“This is the Indian territory,” added the captain, whereupon I became instantly alert, for I was anxious to see the real natives of this wild country.

Our blacks are called “Native Blacks,” but in truth they are no more native to British Guiana than are the negroes of the United States native to North America. They all had the same ancestors, the blacks of Africa who were brought over in slave ships to be sold.

The reason the Indians live in the upper reaches of the river was plain enough, for here the water was smooth and navigable for their peculiar light dugouts and their eggshell-like woodskins, canoes made of bark.

We had no more than swept around the first great bend in the broad expanse of still water above the falls than we saw a canoe loaded down with an Indian family and their possessions.

“Good!” exclaimed Captain. “We will get them to hunt for us and have plenty of fresh meat and good fish. I will call them.”

Then he did a peculiar thing. Instead of shouting to them, and they were surely nearly half a mile away, he called in a very low tone of voice, softer by far than he would use in speaking to the bowman on our own craft.

“Yoo-hoo. Yoo-hoo,” he said, over and over, a dozen times.

“They’ll never hear you. Let me show you how to shout to them,” I said.

“No-no,” warned the captain. “A great shout will frighten them. Their ears are so well trained to every sound of the river and jungle that they can hear almost every sound. A loud noise startles them.”

“Yoo-hoo,” he repeated again, in a low tone.

The Indians heard, turned their heads and studied us and then began to paddle toward us. Gradually our boats came together and I studied them eagerly. It was a strange sight to me, the first really uncivilized people I had ever seen. Before they got to us one of the men stopped paddling and called, in a low tone:

“Me-a-ree! Me-a-ree!”

“Me-a-ree!” repeated Captain Peter.

“What does that mean?” I demanded.

“It is a form of greeting, sir. It means a combination of ‘How do you do?’ and ‘We are friends.’ Always use it when you meet the native Indians.”

They talked in low mutterings but the captain seemed to be able to understand them. Later they talked in a sort of pidgin English that I could understand fairly well myself.

At first I was a bit bashful about staring at them, thinking that they would be embarrassed or consider me rude, and that it might affect their modesty. I laugh now every time I think of that. In the first place, they do not know the meaning of the word “modesty.” Not that they are immodest, but that they go about with scarcely any clothes, which seems quite all right to them. And as for embarrassing them by staring at them, they consider it an honor to be stared at, to have someone take an interest in them.

To me they were a great curiosity. The entire family was crowded in their small canoe, the old grandfather with a gray tinge to his hair although with bright eyes and strong muscles, as his paddling showed; his son, son’s wife, their son, who was quite a youth; two younger boys and several babies. Then there were several tame parrots, a large blue and yellow macaw that croaked incessantly and a worried little flea-bitten dog much mauled by the babies.

And packed in about them in their none too safe canoe I saw a dozen chunks of smoked meat, lying about like so much firewood to be walked over, a dozen or more very stiff and black smoked fish, several baskets of queer vegetables, a bunch of small bananas, bows and arrows, blowpipes and bundles of the dangerous poisoned blowpipe arrows with tips wrapped, fish spears, game spears and a large iron pan which was originally used for washing gold, but used by this Indian family—who prized it above all their worldly goods—as a kettle, stove, frying pan and griddle.

In the center of the boat on a large piece of wet and noninflammable bark, lay a heap of glowing coals, to be used for their cooking fire wherever they might camp or upon their return to their home. From this I figured it out that matches in the jungle were not to be had for the asking.

We gave each man cigarettes, which at once made us friends. The captain began to dicker with the men about securing game for us, and as they talked I made a study of them. One thing is certain, they are not bothered by the high price of clothing. I looked at the big boy, he was about sixteen I should judge—about the age when I got into long trousers and had plenty of difficulties in keeping them pressed, when I worried about the right style and fit of collars and the proper tie to go with my shirt, when collar buttons and scarf pins and cuff links were important to me and I craved silk socks and kept my shoes polished and my clothes brushed. It was a serious matter in those days, as every boy knows, getting up in the morning, getting properly dressed and off to school in time. And I looked at this big boy. He wore a red loin cloth which was about a foot long, suspended from a “belt” made of some wild vine. That was all the clothing that he possessed in the world, all that he needed and I’m sure every boy will envy him his comfort, if nothing more. The men, too, wore loin cloths, red, and about two feet long, tucked into vine belts.

The women wore smaller loin cloths, called an apron or “queyu.” These were decorated with beads and held on by a string of beads instead of vines. The smaller children wore nothing at all. Some of the women wear necklaces made of shells, animal teeth or beads or all three. Some have bright dried beans for beads and most of them wear strings of beads around their legs just below the knees.

The men seemed fairly well built. Their light, copper-colored skin was smooth and remarkably clean. Their hair was jet black and as straight as that of our own North American Indians, and their features slightly resembled those of our Indians at home, although not so strong and picturesque. Some of them, men and women, are tattooed and also decorated with “beena,” done by cutting into the arm and letting the scars heel deeply in queer designs. This “beena,” I learned, is believed by them to be a charm against all sorts of evil and, on the women’s arms (women mostly use this “decoration”), they think that it helps them to weave hammocks and to make their everlasting cassava bread.

The parrots and the dog seemed very friendly, the birds walking over him and making queer, low, croaking sounds, the dog lazily watching them walk over him and now and then wagging his tail.

One peculiarity about their talk, the pidgin English, was something like that of the Chinese coolies I had met in the West. They substitute the letter “l” for the letter “r” and the letter “b” for the letter “v.” They say “belly good” instead of “very good.”

“So,” finished the captain to the head man, the grandfather, “you go hunt some game and shoot some fish for us.”

“Uh huh, me go hunt um. Shoot paccu, shoot maam, anything. Bring ’long to you bime by.” And the Indians then paddled off and were lost to view around the curve of the river.

“Will they do it? Will they come and find us?” I asked.

“They certainly will, sir. They want the sugar and kerosene and other things we shall trade with them for the game.”

CHAPTER XI
“UNCIVILIZED,” BUT COURTEOUS, QUIET AND CLEAN

THAT night we pitched camp on the left bank of the river. While preparing supper I was investigating the forest that circled the little clearing and almost jumped out of my skin when I heard, in soft voices, either side of me, the word “Me-a-ree.”

I am sure I jumped a couple of feet straight up. There, standing right beside me, were two of our Indian friends. They grinned at my fright. Such good woodsmen are they that they can come upon a person without making a sound. Their naked bronze bodies seem to blend with the forest shadows.

One of them had two paccu, the large, flat, delicious fish that they shoot with bow and arrow or sometimes spear. The other had a “maam” which is a bush turkey, not as large as our wild turkeys. This he shot with a blowpipe.

“Me-a-ree,” I exclaimed, as soon as I caught my breath. I shuddered to think how easily they might have killed me had they been enemies. A white man hasn’t a ghost of a chance with such clever natives if they want to get him, because he cannot travel in the jungle and forests down there without being heard, so keen is their hearing, while they can come right up to him, even when his eyes and ears are strained to see and hear, before he knows their presence.

“These are real uncivilized men,” I thought, as I looked them over, standing there in the dim, deep forest edge, with bow and arrow and blowpipe, with the fish and bird, their naked bodies almost the color of the trees and shadows. But when I came to know them better I discovered that if uncivilized meant a rude, uncouth, ill-mannered, treacherous, dirty and disagreeable people, then these natives were civilized, for I found them to be real “nature’s gentlemen,” kind, courteous, quiet and clean. It was father and son who brought the game. They asked for powder and shot for their guns. The father was a sort of chief of their own little tribe and he and his son each owned one of those priceless “lead” guns, the cheap muzzle loaders made expressly for such people. We had plenty of powder and shot and made the exchange.

You or I could never get any game with those “lead” guns because they will not carry far, they will not shoot accurately and they frequently miss fire entirely. But the skilled Indians are able to stalk the game so quietly that they can almost poke the muzzle of the gun into the ribs of the game before they fire point blank. We entertained them with showing them our modern guns, and with showing them their faces in good mirrors and with victrola music, at which they marveled greatly and chattered excitedly about it. Then, as silently as they came, they disappeared into the forest to go to their homes before the night mists should enshroud them.

I went down to the water’s edge to watch the last gleam of light, fast going, when suddenly there was the most terrific threshing about that I had ever heard.

Something gigantic, seemingly as big as a mountain, arose in front of me. I thought it must be a combination of crocodile and man-eating fish come out of the water to feast on me. Then I thought of something else.

“Good-night!” the thought flashed through my mind, “that nigger, Cavan, told the truth when he described the ‘Dodo’ as a hair-covered bird twenty feet high,” and I had visions of being transformed into either a Dodo’s supper or a Dodo’s slave. Instinctively I threw up my arms to ward off the terrible creature, and fell backward.

The “giant” arose and sailed out across the water. It was a toucan—that funny bird with the immense bill that we have seen in our picture books and stuffed and occasionally alive in parks. His loud flapping, hoarse croaking, and the spread of his wings in the deepening twilight made him seem fully as big as Cavan’s mythological “Dodo.”

I laughed at myself, yet the sudden rising of a ruffed grouse in the deep forests at home will frequently startle a chap quite as badly as this, and I am sure that the poor toucan was more scared than I, for I nearly stepped on him when I approached the river bank.

As usual we moved on up the river all the next day and camped at night. And quite as silently as they had come before, the two Indians appeared within our camp circle. This time each had a wild boar slung over his back like a knapsack. The beasts’ feet were tied together with a small vine. Father and son had each killed one with a spear. They were greeted warmly by us and given cigarettes. But they did not seem to care about parting with the game. After a while, being persuaded by the clever Captain Peter, they agreed to let us have them, but first they must take them to their camp to clean them. I learned the reason afterwards.

Here was my opportunity to see the Indians in their homes, to see how they lived.

“Will it be all right to go home with them?” I asked the captain. He said that it would and so I turned to the father.

“Me walkee with you, savvy? Me go long-side your home.”

“No sabbe, no sabbe,” said the Indian.

“I want to walk along home with you,” I said, in straight English this time. The Indian understood that well enough.

“All li’. You come,” he said.

Although he talked pidgin English, he couldn’t understand it when we talked it, but he could understand straight English, except when he didn’t want to answer, then he would say “No sabbe,” and that settled it, you couldn’t get a word from him. They were all like that.

I started out with them through the jungle forest. The silence of the place, their footsteps being almost noiseless, was depressing. I tried to talk.

“How far?” I asked.

“Me no sabbe,” said the youth.

“How long will it take to get there?” I insisted.

“Little,” answered his father. They have no idea of time as divided into hours and minutes, they judge by nights, before “high sun” or noon, and back to “no sun” or evening.

CHAPTER XII
A VISIT TO A NATIVE HOME

THEIR home was not as far away as I had expected. But then, an Indian’s “home” is easily made, consisting of some upright poles, roughly thatched with long marsh grass. Beneath this they place their belongings and they sleep in hammocks at night. The forests are full of little colonies or villages back from the river. They hide well back, along small streams, to secrete their camp fires from river travelers. Our friends had moved along by land as we moved by water and this night they joined some other families. There were several of the shelters and a fire burning in front of each around which members of families squatted. This camp was on a wide stream entering the Mazaruni, and screened by an island. As I entered their camp the natives jumped up from the fires. Remembering the captain’s instructions I smiled at all of them and said, “Me-a-ree, Me-a-ree.”

They replied with the same greeting. I handed the men presents and at once it was understood that I was a friend. Our two hunters dropped the wild boars, squatted beside them and in an amazing short time had them opened and skinned. No butcher at home with clean blocks and keen knives and meat saws ever cut up meat as quickly or as skillfully and neatly as did these men.

The women gathered about and helped them in their work. The bladders were given to two of the smaller boys, brothers of the youth. At once they ran to the water and began to float the bladders and have fun with them just as white children would do.

The intestines were carefully hung on poles by a hot fire of green twigs, to smoke. These, I was told, were to the Indians the “best part of the boar.” I took their word for it, politely refusing to taste of some of the smoked intestines they already had on hand. This surprised the people who, I am sure, must have thought that I was all kinds of a fool to refuse such a wonderful treat as that.

“Take what you want,” said the old man, pointing to the dressed meat. I selected the hams, shoulders and ribs, and they nodded and walked down to the water to wash. Without a word it was understood that their work was done. The women were to do the rest, even to toting the meat to our camp. Quite a number of the Indians came back to our camp. The meat was given around to our black men, saving some of it for our own meals. Our blacks at once proceeded to build a fire of green twigs and smoke their share of the meat.

In our shelter the Indians squatted. One of the Indians who had heard our victrola pointed at it and made a circular motion with his hand, indicating that he wanted us to make the discs go around. Jimmy was delighted to play host and proceeded to go through our selection of records. The flea-bitten dog backed away and howled at certain places during the concert, but one of the parrots, which had come over perched on a child’s shoulder, was deeply interested and flew to the victrola, lighted on it, eyed the revolving record sharply, squawked delight or anger at the music and finally hopped down on the revolving record.

He was probably the most surprised parrot in the world, for that revolving record yanked his feet out from under him and he fell squawking on his back. The way that old parrot flapped off of the victrola and back to the child’s shoulder was a caution, squawking and snapping his beak as if he were swearing, in bird talk.

The Indians laughed noisily and shrilly, like children, at this.

We gave the women some little trinkets and all of them a little food. One young woman looked at my hammock and made up a funny face, jabbering to an older woman who nodded, and without a word to me she took down my hammock and began to unravel it. I decided to say nothing and watch her. When it was all unraveled and nothing but a pile of cords she began deftly to weave it again and when she was finished it was as even and smooth as any hammock ever made. She had seen an uneven place in it, knew that it would not be comfortable, and fixed it. I slept much better in it that night. I gave her a piece of scented soap, which delighted her. With great pride she walked around letting everyone have a smell of it. I saw her again and she had bored a hole through the cake and strung it on her necklace. I have often wondered how long it lasted. As the Indians never mind the rain but are out in it just as they are in sunshine, that cake of soap certainly dissolved in time.

Jimmy served me a goodly portion of the boar meat. Both Lewis and myself enjoyed it. The meat was a bit stringy, but it was delicious, nevertheless.

The night dampness and mists began to settle. Without a word the Indians silently departed into the forests, to go back to their shelters and sleep in their hammocks. I asked Jimmy about the vampires and he assured me that the Indians were safe.

“Vampire bats ain’t got no use for Injun, suh. Reckin they don’t admire the taste of ’em.”

The Indians sleep without clothes, other than the mesh-like flaps of the hammocks thrown over them, giving plenty of opportunity for the vampires and also for the really dangerous mosquitoes, which proved my undoing, as I will tell about later. The Indians seldom have jungle fever or malaria and if the mosquitoes do bite them there are no bad effects.

CHAPTER XIII
THE SNAKE THAT DISAPPEARED

THAT night Cavan remarked that we were now getting into the big snake district.

“Big snake feller here plenty. Sho’ he scar’ yo’,” said Cavan.

“How long?” I asked.

“Some like a tall tree, some not so much,” said Cavan. And then they discussed the snakes, how they encircle wild boars and other big animals and “squeeze ’em inter a pulp an’ eat ’em.” It was interesting, but I found myself looking out into the jungle and imagining that every branch I could see was a giant snake.

That night I was awakened and felt my hair standing up and quivering and prickling at each root, for, hanging down from the tree in front of me, to which was suspended the foot end of my hammock, was a great snake. I couldn’t stir at first. He lowered his head and swung it about like a pendulum, finally resting it on the foot of my hammock. Then, raising his head, he seemed to see me. In the dim light from a pale moon and a ghastly glow from the coals of our fire I could see the snake’s bright eyes and his tongue darting in and out.

I tried to shout. I tried to look about and see if Lewis was still asleep, to see if he couldn’t help me. I tried to call Jimmy, to see if he was awake, but couldn’t seem to turn my head.

The snake slid further down the tree and glided across my stomach. He was so long that much of him was still draped up the tree and over a limb. He raised his head and opened his jaws, as if laughing at my helplessness, and I thought of many things.

I thought that it was a silly thing to have ventured off into these wilds. I wondered why I had not been satisfied to stay in a white man’s country and not butt into the wild jungles of the Indians. I thought of everyone at home and finally decided that no snake was going to finish me that way without one good struggle. I looked keenly at his neck to decide just where his throat was, located it back of his jaws and, as he lunged at me, I let out a terrific yell and clutched both hands in a life-and-death grip around the neck of the great snake.

He tried to yank away and his strength lifted me upright from the hammock, his whole body quivered. Still I clung on. Then he began to writhe horribly and to thrash about, swaying me this way and that.

In the struggle I fell from the hammock to the ground, still with my deadly grip about that snake’s neck. With my fingers clutched in a death grip about his throat, I felt that I would be better able to defend myself. I must have had this thought during the process of falling, for when I struck the ground with a terrific jolt I found my fingers clutched in the holster of my revolver.

Instantly I was on my feet, looking this way and that for the snake. There was no snake in sight! Where had he gone? I looked about again and discovered that there had been no snake at all!

It was the result of my talk with Jimmy and Cavan the night before about mammoth snakes. The perspiration was dripping from my face. I looked about stealthily to see if any of my companions had witnessed my dream struggles, but all seemed to be sleeping peacefully, so I climbed back into my hammock, yet the dream so upset me that I was unable to sleep any more. However, it was almost dawn.

“How did you sleep last night?” asked Lewis, when he sat up in his hammock.

“Bully,” I declared, giving him a sharp look to see if he was trying to kid me about my foolish dream, but either he had not awakened or else was a good actor, for he never let on that he knew about it. My arm was sore for days where I bruised it in striking a rock as I landed beneath my hammock. It was the only bad dream I had during my months in the jungle, but it was quite enough.

CHAPTER XIV
DIFFICULTIES OF JUNGLE TRAVEL

THE next two days our trip was disagreeable because of continued rains, but on the third day we camped at four-thirty close to a “path” that led to the largest Indian village. I was determined to visit it and pictured quite a little town. We could see the tall column of smoke from their fires.

My companion and I were so eager to get to this village next morning that we did not wait to eat, but, taking a handful of food, set out with one Boviander to carry a knife and lantern.

For the first time I learned something of the difficulties of jungle travel. We had to slash through vines, wade through bogs of slime and mud, clamber over gnarled roots and stumble around in the most tangled growth of vegetation I ever saw.

“If this is a ‘path,’” I said to Lewis, “I’m glad I’m not in the wilderness.”

“No go outside path,” grinned the Boviander.

We assured him that we would not, but we could find no trace of a path at all. When we were not in muddy bogs, feeling our way to make sure we would not step into some hole over our heads, or clambering around fallen trees and brush, we were going up short but steep little hills covered with tangled vines. After two hours of this, and being almost exhausted, we came to a clearing.

“Here it is,” shouted Lewis.

And as if to prove it we heard a rooster crow. Eagerly we stumbled out into the clearing and saw the few huts, but the place was deserted.

“More further,” said the Boviander; “someone he die.”

By this he meant that some member of the village had died. The Indians always desert their village when anyone dies in it, and move on to establish another. They will never live in a village where anyone has died.

The lonely rooster crowed defiantly at us as we skirted the village to find the “path.” Having found it we moved on about a mile.

“Ah, here we are,” I declared as I came into an opening.

Not a soul in sight!

“Another die,” commented our Boviander, shrugging his shoulders.

“If the death rate is very high we’ll never overtake that village,” grumbled Lewis.

Up above were tiny patches of blue, bits of the sky that we could see through the thick jungle growth. I saw some smoke and decided that at last we were close to the village. But at the opening we saw but a single “house” or shelter. The Indian came forward to see us.

Lewis had prospected up through this section before sending for me, and when he saw this Indian he exclaimed in a low voice, “That’s Simon.”

He didn’t seem at all glad to find him there, but I had no opportunity to ask him about it before Simon, the Indian, advanced and, smiling as blandly as a Chinaman, exclaimed cordially:

“Me-a-ree!”

He told us that the village was quite a distance on, and offered to lead us there. Lewis could not well refuse, as we had now gone far away from our camp and the district was wild and unknown to any of us. But I could see that he was not very well pleased with the prospect.

Simon motioned to his boy, a handsome, copper-colored youth, to start on with him, and proceeded to lead the way, taking a blowpipe and quiver of the poisoned arrows with him. This, too, troubled Lewis. But there seemed nothing else to do, so we followed.

On the way Lewis told me what was worrying him. During his previous prospecting trip when he went up the river to make sure that there were diamond fields before sending for me, he had found an old Indian very sick at one of the villages. This was Simon’s father. Lewis did what he could for the sick old Indian, giving him quinine pills, the universal cure-all in the jungle, but the old man died.

On this trip one of our men had heard that Simon believed Lewis had purposely killed his father and that he did it with the “magic pills,” as he called the quinine.

“They say Simon has acted queerly ever since,” explained Lewis, “and he may imagine that I really did kill his father and start a little ‘ka-ni-a-mer’ of his own between just him and me.”

“And what on earth is a ‘ka-ni-a-mer’?” I demanded.

“Just about the same as an old Kentucky feud where two families try for years to kill each other off. So you see I’m not extremely trustful of this bland Simon Injun,” said Lewis.

“And to top it all,” he added, “I dreamed the other night that my mother came and warned me to look out as I was to be in great danger.”

This made me decidedly uneasy and I was determined to keep my eye on Simon every minute, staying between him and Lewis.

The trip to the village seemed long. There was considerable uphill going. Every once in a while Simon would turn and jabber at his boy, who would instantly look around at us, then reply to his father, who would hurry on faster than ever. They were setting a terrific pace. Already wearied with our travels before we came to Simon’s hut, this was overdoing it just a little. But, worse than that, I got the idea that Simon was trying to lose us, to rush on far ahead and then hide and kill us—or kill Lewis anyway, with his blowpipe from ambush. I knew that just a scratch from the poisoned tip of one of those slender arrows would finish Lewis, or anyone else.

“You take my gun,” I said to Lewis, “and take it easy, while I keep up with him and keep him right in plain sight.”

Lewis is a heavy-built man and it was more difficult for him to keep up the hot pace uphill. I hurried on and got quite close to them. Simon spoke to his boy, who turned around and gave a little jump of astonishment to see me so close. He spoke sharply to his father, who turned around. Just as he turned around I purposely pulled my revolver from the holster with a great flourish.

To these native Indians our revolvers are wonderful and fearful things. They regard them with awe and also with fear. That so small a thing held lightly in the hand could deal death is one of the most amazing things they know about. When Simon saw this he at once slackened his pace and gave me another bland smile.

“Me-a-ree. Me-a-ree!” he said.

“Me-a-ree,” I replied, but kept my revolver in my hand. After that he slowed up and made no attempt to lose us, but he kept looking back frequently and earnestly to make sure that I was not pointing the deadly “mystery gun” at him.

We passed many small platforms lashed to tall trees. I thought they were the “graves” of Indians, as I knew that many of our American Indians had the custom of leaving their dead on high platforms. But the Boviander explained that they were hunting stations. The Indians climb up and kneel on these platforms motionless for hours, waiting for game to pass so that they can kill it with blowpipes, spears, bows and arrows or with their crude guns.

It was getting late and I had just begun to wonder if we would have to camp in that dismal swamp all night when I heard the sound of a horn. It was some Indian call made by blowing on a shell. Simon nodded, meaning that it was the village.

Soon we came into a great clearing. I expected to see a thriving village, since I had been assured that Assura was the largest of the Indian villages. And it was the largest, yet it consisted of only seven houses, with A-shaped roofs of reeds, and one larger or communal house with a conical roof.

Three of the mangiest, sorriest looking dogs I had ever beheld, howled mournfully when we came into the clearing, then tucked their tails between their legs and ran away to hide, having performed their duty of warning the villagers of our approach.

I was greatly interested, for the villagers did not know that we were coming and I was sure to find them in their primitive life without “putting on” for company. They flocked about us, more curious than we, for we had seen Indians and knew something about their customs by this time, but few of them had seen any white men except the Dutch and half-breed Dutch “pork-knockers,” or wandering diamond miners.

As usual, they wore no clothes except the red loin cloth of the men and the queyu, or tiny apron of the women. But every garment that we wore was a curiosity to them. I am sure that had we marched in there, wearing no more than a loin cloth, they would not have been greatly interested. But hats, coats, vests, trousers, leggings, shoes—all of those garments were wonderful curiosities to them all, as you may well imagine.

There was an all-around exchange of “Me-a-rees” and we passed around some cigarettes, whereupon they knew that we were friends.

How they crowded about us, children with no clothes at all, and tiny babies that could not walk crawled along over the filthy ground, through spots of black mud and shallow pools of stagnant water, picking up the dirt and animal refuse from the ground and apparently feasting on it. It made us shudder to see them, yet those tiny babies seemed quite contented and quite healthy. At once I wondered what an American mother who dresses her baby in costly flannels and embroidered linens, places it in a hundred dollar baby carriage and wraps it in another hundred dollar fur robe, would say if her pink little darling were to be stripped and left to crawl about through the muck of this jungle clearing to get chummy with chiggers and stinging red ants, big ugly black beetles, mosquitoes and other things!

CHAPTER XV
HOSPITALITY OF THE JUNGLE FOLK

IN pidgin English we made the men understand that we wanted six of them to go up the river with us, some to help us hunt, some to build a “logie” for Lewis and myself.

They agreed to go, but when we suggested that we start right away, they declined. We must wait another day. They could not set out without a supply of cassava, which is to them what our bread is to us, the staff of life. And they declared it too late to venture into the jungle, so we had to arrange to stay with them over night.

This interested me, as the night trip was not to my liking and I wanted to see Indian life at close range. Among the Indians was one called “Abraham,” who had been with Lewis on his previous trip. He was an honest chap, faithful and a hard worker and fond of Lewis because of his name. It seems that on his prospecting trip Lewis liked this chap and asked him his name. Alas, he had none. Indians are given names by their medicine men, called “Peiman,” or by the chief of the colony, at birth, providing their parents can pay enough in Indian trade goods. When Abraham was born his parents had nothing to give, so he went without a name. This is considered a calamity among the Indians, as a nameless one is quite liable, so they believe, to meet up with all of the misfortunes possible to befall a human being. Lewis liked him so well that he at once assumed the role of a “Peiman” and solemnly bestowed upon him the name of “Abraham.” For this Abraham would do anything for Lewis.

There was another Indian who interested us. He had but one eye, but was almost a giant in build. He always had a jolly grin and as we liked him and found him to be nameless, I gravely assured him that I could bestow names. He begged me to do so.

“Gi’ me call by,” he said.

“You shall henceforth be called by ‘Lewis,’” I said, with a dramatic gesture, winking at Lewis, who grinned at the joke.

Soon I had taught him just how to speak the word “Lewis” and he was a very proud Indian.

Each “house” consisted of only a reed and palm-leaf roof supported on poles, there being no sides to any of them. The supply of household goods was pitifully small indeed. There were plenty of weapons, a few cassava-making implements, a rare metal dish or tin can and hammocks everywhere. The Indian women sit in these hammocks doing their weaving or bead work by day and all sleep in them by night. There was a fire at each hut, made of logs which were arranged like the spokes of a wheel, the inner ends, or “hub” being the fire. As the ends would burn away the logs would be pushed in toward the center and new ones added as the old ones burned up. These fires supplied plenty of heat for cooking and enough warmth for the night chill and they were never allowed to go out. In some places a village is not moved for a year or two, depending upon whether there is a death there, and a fire once started burns steadily on that spot all of the time.

We were tired and wet. We needed food and rest and told Abraham this, whereupon he promptly gave up his house to Lewis and myself and took his wife and flock of children over to the communal house with the conical roof.

We livened up the fire and decided to remove our wet clothes and dry them. We had just about as much privacy as a goldfish, and the villagers flocked about us in great excitement as we proceeded to strip off our outer garments.

We stripped down to our flannel underwear and decided to sit about our roaring fire and get dry while our clothes dried. But the natives eagerly asked the privilege of taking our clothes and drying them for us. There seemed no way out of it and I wondered if I was going to be left to travel through the jungle in nothing but underwear. But I should not have feared. They were honest enough. They merely wished to borrow our clothes to strut about in for a while. One big chap had my hat cocked on his head at the “tough guy” angle as if he had worn one all his life. Two giggling young women divided my big boots, each wearing one, and marched proudly about, the thong ties dragging. An old man put on my coat. But the trousers were too wet, so they escaped. Next morning they were returned, well dried and nothing whatever missing from the pockets.

I sat in a hammock, slung close to the fire, drying my wet socks and the legs of my underclothes, watching the women prepare a meal of eggs, venison, labbas and cassiri for us, and grinned at the picture we must have made.

“Not quite up to the etiquette of polite society at home,” I said to Lewis.

“But we are overdressed, even now,” he answered, “according to the style down here.”

The houses are called “benabs.” Abraham said he would bring the food over to our benab. This he did. It was smoking hot, heaped up in one big wooden dish, and with it a calabash, or gourd, of cassiri. This was a bright pink liquid, most sickening in appearance. The Indians all drank out of the same big gourd and seemed to enjoy it.

Lewis took a taste.

“Great,” he said.

I didn’t like his expression when he said it, but was determined to try anything once, so I tasted it.

“U-r-r-r-gh!”

Dud. Lewis had his back to me. I could see that he was shaking with laughter.

“For two cents I’d pour this pink slop down your neck!” I gasped.

The Indians looked on and grinned. I did not wish to be impolite, so I said, “Yaa! Cassiri too much humbug Yankee man’s stomach!” and I hugged my stomach as if in pain and smiled to assure them of good feeling. They merely laughed.

This drink tasted like sour milk, long overripe strawberries, vinegar, pepper, sour yeast, cassava meal and whatever else they might have had left over to dump into it. But the venison was delicious and the labba, which is a sort of pig about the size of a rabbit, was as good meat as I ever tasted. The cassava is not bad at all and so we managed to make out a very good meal. But if I had taken a big swallow of that pink cassiri I am sure my stomach would have burned up or exploded.

It came time for us to get some sleep if ever we were to turn in. While we were fairly dry, there was a dampness in the air and we had only our underclothes. But the headman of the village brought out three strips of cotton cloth he had been hoarding in an old canister, another loaned a frayed old shirt he had got in some trade, another contributed a pair of red cotton trousers. My shirt and tunic were dry and with these, divided between Lewis and me, we turned in to our hammocks. We tried a fire of glowing coals under our hammocks as did some of the Indians, but the smoke was too much for us and we had to move the fire. Besides, I didn’t want to have any more snake dreams and fall out in a bed of hot coals.

I lay there listening to the jungle noises and trying to guess what sort of beast, bird or reptile was making them, when it came time for the Indians to turn in. Just as the village became quiet and the babies stopped squalling and the kids stopped chattering, there came a native song.

“This is a great time to start singing!” I grumbled to Lewis.

“Go to sleep and don’t mind it,” he advised.

“I can’t sleep until he stops that fool song,” I insisted.

“Ha-ha,” laughed Lewis, “you’ve got some fine little wait coming.” He covered himself in his hammock and proceeded to sleep. I didn’t understand what he meant at the time, but I learned, for I waited and waited for the singer to stop. But when he got tired, another singer took it up and then another and another.

They keep that song going all night every night of their lives.

There was nothing for me to do but to remain in my hammock and listen to that terrible singing. The voices were not so bad, nor were they harsh, but there didn’t seem to be much melody in what they sang and after you have heard the same gibberish sung over and over and over for about a million times (so it seemed to me) you certainly get good and tired of it.

It was no effort on my part to learn the song. I got so that I knew just what the next line would be and I found myself muttering it along with whichever Indian happened to be taking his “spell” at singing it.

“What does it mean?” I asked many. But the best answer I could get was that it was a “sort of song to keep danger away at night.”

It also kept sleep away from me for several hours, although I finally did get to sleep in spite of it and did not awaken until daylight had come and the singing had ceased. I always wished that I could get a translation of the song, but I will repeat it as it sounded: