Up the Mazaruni for Diamonds

These Indians seemed the most restless people on earth. Before I fell asleep I watched them in the big communal hut which was within twenty feet of me. I learned afterwards that when going on a long trip they sit up most of the night and stuff themselves with food. They seemed to be eating all night here, and drinking that pink cassiri. They would wander about inside their shelter, sit in a hammock eating, walk over to the calabash and drink the cassiri and back to the hammock again.

“If that’s the life of a British Guiana Indian, then I’m glad that I am not one of them. None of this free and untrammeled child-of-nature life for me,” I told Lewis afterward.

“Wonder what they would say if they saw so many of our people back home sitting up until nearly daylight having banquets, dancing the fox-trot and one-step and hesitation and opening wine and smoking and having a regular night of it,” was his quiet comment.

It was good food for thought. The more I figured it out, the more I wondered just where the line between “civilization” and “barbarity” was drawn. I am sure that they did not injure their health as much with their cassava cakes and fruits, eaten during the night, as so many of our so-called “sports” do with their all night dancing and drinking and smoking and eating of lobster a la king and other fancy and expensive foods.

Some of them were drinking a black liquid from a gourd. This was “piwarree.”

“Don’t drink it,” warned Lewis.

“Thanks for the tip, old man,” I answered, “but there aren’t enough diamonds in South America to get me to touch it.”

It was the most vile looking liquid I ever saw, yet the Indians seemed to enjoy it and it did not appear to intoxicate them, although there was probably alcohol in it, as it was made by a fermenting process. I had seen a number of women who wore a peculiar tattoo mark on their foreheads. I had thought it merely some sort of barbaric adornment, but it seems this was their “trade mark.” It indicated that they were piwarree makers. These women, to make this drink, sit in a circle about a fire where cassava cakes are allowed to bake until they are burned through quite crisp and black. Each woman chews this burned bread until it is soft and pulpy with her saliva. This she strains through her teeth into a vessel in the center. When the vessel is full the contents are thrown into a large wooden trough and boiling water poured over it. It is allowed to ferment. When quite sour and black it is ready for drinking.

CHAPTER XVI
CASSAVA CAKES AND BLOW-PIPES

IN the morning I expected to start out, but learned that the cassava cakes must be made. The women had started the process the night before. But after that I frequently saw it made and the process is interesting.

Cassava is a root, something like a large turnip, yet longer and more in the shape of an immense sweet potato. The inside is quite white and somewhat soft, a trifle “woody,” like a turnip that we would throw away. These roots grow wild. There is no cultivating necessary, although in some localities they cut away the other vegetation and allow the cassava plants to thrive a little better.

A grater is made by driving sharp bits of flint into a board. This is covered with a sort of wax which hardens and leaves only the sharp tips of the flints sticking out. The women peel the cassava roots with dull knives or sharp flints. The root is then grated over this flint grater and the fine particles fall down into a woven frame.

Next comes the “metapee.” This is a most peculiar basket, made solely for the manufacture of cassava flour. It may be pulled out long or pushed in short. It works something like an old-fashioned “accordion” hat rack. When pushed down short it is very large around but as it is pulled out it grows smaller and smaller in circumference. It is a great trick to weave these metapee baskets, for they must be exceedingly strong.

The grated cassava is put in the metapee when it is squat down short and large around. One end of this basket is hung from a pole or limb. In the bottom of the metapee is a loop through which a pole is run. One end of the pole is lashed to the ground, at the foot of a tree. The woman now sits on the other end of the pole. This makes a lever and her weight stretches the metapee out into a long wicker cylinder. This squeezes all of the moisture out of the ground cassava root. And here is a most remarkable thing—that juice is a deadly poison! Yet the pulp that remains makes a nourishing bread.

The woman bounces up and down on her end of the pole until every bit of the juice is out. This juice is saved, as the poison can be used by the men. Or the juice may be allowed to evaporate and what remains of that, instead of being poison, is good seasoning for food!

The pulp is spread in the sun to dry. When dry it is sifted through a basket sieve and becomes rather coarse flour. To this water is added, the dough is kneaded with the fists much as our women knead wheat flour and water into dough. This dough is flattened out into cakes three feet in diameter and half an inch thick and baked on a flat slab, a sheet of iron if it be possible to get it, or on anything handy. The bread is now ready to eat. It is firm, fairly hard, rather crisp and has but little flavor. To me it tasted like refined sawdust. But it is extremely nourishing.

It takes half an hour to cook these cassava cakes and, kept dry, they will last a great while. That is why the women baked a number of them to take with them upon the impending journey. It was comforting to have this much certain about the uncertain journey which we were now to take.

While the Indian women busied themselves making cassava cakes for the journey back to our camp I studied all of the weapons of the men in the village, for they interested me. There were but two guns in the village, owned by the chief and another very “wealthy” native. These were the muzzle-loading “lead” guns.

What interested me most of all was the blowpipe. It is really a wonderful weapon. It is a wonder to me that we boys back home did not make similar weapons. I am sure that with a little skill we could have picked off rabbits, squirrels and game birds, although, of course, we would have had to become good woodsmen. Of all the weapons to be faced, I believe the blowpipe as made and used by these Indians is the most deadly. I would rather face almost anything else.

These pipes are from eight to twelve feet long. They are made of two strong reeds, a hollow-stemmed variety that grows in the jungle. They take the midribs of a great palm leaf, dry them, split them up, char one end in the fire to make it hard, and with this force out the little partitions that appear at the joints in all reeds, as in bamboo. Then a smaller reed is found that will just slide inside the larger one. They now have a double reed which makes an extremely long yet strong tube. The hole is made through the inner reed in the same manner, and these palm midribs and fine sand are worked inside the inner tube until it is quite as smooth as a rifle bore.

The arrows are made from the same palm midribs, split as fine as an eighth of an inch in thickness. While at work mining I hired an Indian boy to make a collection of bird skins for me. These boys can skin a bird perfectly and prepare the skin so that it will be like soft, thin kid, without misplacing a feather. I watched this boy make blowpipes and arrows. He dried the palm midribs in the sun a few days and they split readily into as fine arrows as he needed.

Just how he made the deadly poison with which he tipped them I was not certain. I will admit that we kept clear of that poison just as you would keep clear of dynamite. I know that it was made from crushed leaves and roots and put in a gourd. This poison is called “waurali.” As soon as the poison is dried on, in the sun, a string is woven in and out around each end of each arrow until there is a long row of them, and this is rolled around a stick so that there is a solid roll of these arrows, which may be pulled out one by one.

The quiver is made of woven grass, the bottom made of some wax that hardens from trees. This roll of arrows is placed, poison tips up, in the quiver and a skin top put over them to keep out moisture. Attached to the quiver is a small basket containing loose cotton.

When the boy was ready to shoot a bird he would remove one of the arrows, pinch off a bit of cotton from the basket and wrap it loosely around the blunt end. Thrusting the arrow into the tube this cotton made it fit just enough to take the compression of air. Sighting the bird, the boy placed the blowpipe to his lips, aimed at the bird and gave a sudden sharp puff.

The speed of that slender arrow was marvelous. Seldom did the boy miss. If the bird was merely scratched, it would fly but a short distance before the deadly poison would get in its work and then it would come fluttering to the ground, quite dead by the time the boy, running after it, would pick it up. Sometimes the great tapirs, as large as a hog, would be killed by these slender arrows.

Their bows and arrows interested me. Their bows are longer than most of those used by the American Indians, being six feet or more. And these men are generally smaller than the American Indians. They have many kinds of arrows for the various game, and they also use a sort of harpoon, a large barbed spearhead on the arrow with a long stout woven cord fastened to it. This is for shooting fish.

One day an Indian took the fruit of a star apple tree, wove a loose covering for it, hung it in a pool of water at the shore of the river from a limb overhead and waited. I saw a great fish dart for this bait and at the same time “Zowie!” went this harpoon arrow.

There was a great thrashing about in the water, but the Indian calmly hauled in his harpoon and there was a big pacu on it, a very tasty fish when properly cooked. They also use hand spears with a half dozen barbed points branching out and get many fish in that manner.

CHAPTER XVII
ON THE MARCH AGAIN

BY the time I had watched the cassava cake making process and examined the weapons in the village and noted almost everything of how they lived, the Indians were ready to go on with us. They had been eating all night as I explained. Now they took a hasty farewell drink of that pink stuff, cassiri, and took a large mouthful of cassava cake; their baskets were already packed for travel, and so we started.

But did they carry their baskets?

No indeed! That would have been a disgrace, like a man washing dishes or making a dress for baby. Carrying the luggage was woman’s work. What did each man have a wife for if not to do his work? The men set off with only their weapons, and the women fastened the heavy baskets to their backs by means of vine ropes around their foreheads.

Each man carried various objects in his basket, some tools, hunks of smoked meat, some extra loin cloths with perhaps a ragged old shirt secured from some “pork knocker.” On top of these belongings was placed a stack of the cassava cakes and covered with palm leaves to keep out the rain, for it showed signs of raining when we set out.

The Indians went on ahead. The women followed. They had removed whatever garments they owned—some of them had loose garments, merely for style, made of strips of cotton—and traveled only with those little beaded aprons or queyus. We came last, but after a while the women stepped out of the path and let us go on ahead. I think they wanted to watch us, just as we would like to stay behind and watch something curious walking on ahead.

We thought we had a hard trip getting to the village, but we were in for the hardest traveling afoot that I ever knew. I called it “land swimming.” The mud was literally knee deep. We would put one foot down, then the next one, stand still and pull one foot out with a great effort, step ahead with that, pull the other out with a great sucking sound, and so on. It was only with great endurance that we made this trip through the rain, but even the worst journey must come to an end and finally we reached our own camp. Nothing ever looked more homelike than our shelters, our fires and the boats moored alongside.

Lewis and I made a dash for the boat to get some dry warm clothes. Jimmy, glad to see us back, made some hot tea. Soon we had on lighter shoes, dry woolen underclothes and dry suits and socks, lay back in our hammocks and drank good hot tea and felt none the worse for our journey into the primitive homes of the Indians.

We gave the women plenty to eat and made them presents of sugar, rice, salt and tea to take back with them. They were the happiest women you ever saw and chattered among themselves like kids at a Christmas tree. Then they turned and went back into the forests without a word of leave taking to their husbands, as this toting of their husbands’ baskets was all in their day’s work.

Of all the sticky, funny messes I ever saw it was the packs of these Indians. The rain had soaked through the palm leaves on top and through the meshes of the baskets at the sides. The cassava cakes had dissolved into a soft, semi-liquid dough. This had run down through the contents of the baskets. Nearly every one contained bits of red cloth—an Indian’s choice possession. The colors had run and there were pink dough and dough-covered arrows and pink smoked meat and sticky, cassava dough enameled shirts. It was a great mess, but the Indians scraped the dough together to dry out in the sun the next day and worried not at all, for the cassava dough would all dry and be rubbed off their belongings.

While the Indians like the white men, they do not like the blacks. They get along with them all right because they have nothing whatever to do with the “Me-go-ro-man” as they call them. Our blacks, as usual, had their three shelters a distance from ours. The Indians built a hasty shelter alongside our canvas one, slung their hammocks, now daubed with dough, and climbed in. Jimmy started the victrola, the camp fires burned brightly despite the rain, and the Indians sat up and stared open-eyed, at the “hoodoo” box from which came the, to them, weird sounds. They believed that the spirits of the dead were inside that victrola, but when they saw Jimmy putting on the records and saw that no ghosts came out to kill them, they lost their fear of it.

The plaintive Southern melodies seemed to please them most. Next in their favor was a weird jazz number. From the wet jungle came the peculiar roar of red baboons. We would have fresh baboon steak next day, if we could spare an hour for hunting.

And then from the black, dismal depths of that dripping jungle came the most pitiful sobbing that I ever heard. Whether a child or a woman, or a number of them, I could not make out. I leaped from my hammock, wondering what was happening to them, if they were lost, and trying to guess how far into the jungle we would have to travel to rescue them.

Never had I heard such distress as that weeping and wailing and heartbreaking sobbing.

I pictured some helpless women there, perhaps being attacked by wild animals. Even if they were Indian women, still they were humans, I thought—

“Black night monkey,” said Jimmy.

I looked at Lewis. He smiled and nodded.

For a moment I could scarcely believe that such human crying could come from animals.

“They always cry all night,” Lewis told me. “Very annoying at first. You’ll get used to it. Just remember that they are ugly black monkeys, that they like to make that noise, that they are not really crying any more than a dog is crying when he barks, and now go to sleep.”

No one else seemed to mind it. But I must admit that it kept me awake a long while. I couldn’t force myself to think that it was a natural noise made by an animal. I couldn’t believe anything could make such a noise unless it was actual crying caused by grief or suffering. Finally I fell asleep.

CHAPTER XVIII
ARRIVAL AT THE DIAMOND FIELDS

NEXT morning the sun was shining brightly. The Indians were coming in from a hunting trip with game.

Our blacks had finished their tea and crackers, the shelters were coming down and soon we would be on the way up the river.

“We ought to make the big bend by to-morrow,” said Captain Peters.

Those were thrilling words to me, for up just around the big bend in the Mazaruni River, which I have already described, lay our diamond fields, and while every inch of the seventeen days’ boat trip up this mad, wild river, among the primitive Indians, had been one of interest and adventure for me, after all, I was out for diamonds and naturally eager to get to the fields and try my luck at digging up the sparklers. Of course I did not expect to pick them up off the ground. “Dud” Lewis had told me of the process and I had read up on diamond mining before starting, yet I had high hopes of finding wealth there in the gravel of the old river bed. Mountains could be seen in the distance rising like temples above the low land.

Nothing startling occurred that day. I believe I saw more birds than usual, and the banks became less marshy. The jungle seemed to be slightly changing into a trifle higher and drier forest land. It was still thick, almost impenetrable, yet a bit different.

On the seventeenth day we came to a small portage. We could not paddle over it, yet it was not necessary to remove all of our five tons of supplies. Lightening our cargo about one half, the men jumped out, fastened the ropes astern and the single rope to the bow for the last time on our upriver trip and hauled away with a will.

Soon we were over, goods repacked and the blacks paddling in still, smooth water, but more vigorously than usual as they, too, were glad to be at the end of their hard journey. Seventeen days of paddling a fifty-foot boat made of great planks and laden with five tons of goods, hauling it over portages, is not exactly a picnic, and the men certainly earned their forty-eight cents a day. And so they thumped and scraped their much-worn paddles along the gunwales of that old boat, worn smooth with constant paddling, and they sang their everlasting paddle song with more cheerfulness than they had done for days.

Finally Captain Peter spoke something to the bowman while he swung his steering paddle over, and our craft put in shore. We nosed about and found just the site we needed, and proceeded to unload everything, this time to set up our mining camp.

A temporary shelter went up to store the goods under, with low hanging eaves to keep out the rain. We had now got into a country where there were no more haphazard rains. We could almost set our watches by the rains, which came regularly every morning about daybreak, for a half hour or more, and again every night right after sunset, for a little while. Although these twice-a-day rains were of short duration the water certainly came down in bucketfuls while it was raining.

A rack of poles kept our goods from the ground so that the rain could run underneath. Our shelters went up for that night, and eagerly I began to study the gravel formation, really not expecting to see any diamonds, but anxious to study the soil and somehow all the time wondering if, by chance, I might not see a diamond in the dirt. Every sparkling bit of rock I picked up. Lewis laughed good-naturedly at this, but he was quite as eager as I to get at the business for which we had the long, tiresome and really costly trip.

We had journeyed 300 miles up the river. At this point the Mazaruni had once flowed over the dry land where our camp was located. Some convulsion of nature, probably of volcanic origin, had changed the course of the river, and it was in this dry and ancient river bed that we hoped to find a fortune.

For tools we had brought along only the simplest kind, good old picks and shovels, and a hand pump. We had plenty of material with us for making the mining apparatus, crude but necessary, but there was a great deal to be done and we decided to get well settled and start in right.

First we had to have a permanent home, a “logie,” which is much like a bungalow, only more open and quite high and dry. Then we had to make good shelters for our three groups of blacks, and also for what Indians we would find it necessary to hire.

We also had to set up our mine, arrange with Indians to hunt a steady supply of food, make a permanent cooking place and get as comfortable as possible so that we could go ahead with our diamond mining without interruption.

Two beautiful white egrets sailed up the river and, without fear of us at all, proceeded to make a nesting place close to our camp site. I considered this to be a good omen. The wonderful crest feathers on their heads would have brought several hundred dollars in the days before wise lawmakers at home forbade bringing such feathers into the country.

“How about tigers?” I asked of Captain Peter.

There had been frequent talk of them. It is true that there is a species of large and ferocious jaguar that haunts the wilds of British Guiana and I hoped to bag at least one and take the skin home as a trophy. Captain Peter smiled.

“As scarce as hens’ teeth,” he said.

I wondered where he got that expression. Perhaps they use it all over the world. I know that we use it at home in all parts of the country, yet it surprised me to hear this Dutchman, who for twenty years had navigated the wild waters of the old Mazaruni, say it.

It was a disappointment to hear him declare that tigers were scarce. I had visions of stalking one and proudly bringing his carcass into camp.

I got a tiger skin all right before I left the country, but there is no glamor of adventure about it. I cannot exhibit it at home and spin yarns of stalking the ferocious jungle beast, for it was an old skin and I bought it from an Indian for five dollars’ worth of trade articles.

The Indians get a tiger now and then, but will not journey far afield just to bag them as they are not fit to eat and are extremely dangerous beasts to face, even for the skilled natives.

CHAPTER XIX
HOW THE NATIVES HUNT AND FISH

FOR four long, busy months, we were to delve into that pebbly soil, and during that time I would also learn much of hunting and fishing that was strange indeed. I was especially interested in the manner in which the Indians get fish by poisoning them. Of course that seems very unsportsmanlike to us at home, but remember that these natives do not hunt and fish for the sport of it, but to live. And then, bear in mind that while we have telescope steel rods and artificial bait and ball bearing automatic reels and oiled silk lines and transparent gut leaders, floats, spoons, spinners, rubber minnows, hundreds of artificial flies, nets for landing the fish, gaffs, and every sort of fishing tackle, these Indians have not even common hooks and sinkers. Spears and harpoon arrows are their only means of fishing, aside from poison. Consequently one should not say that they were unsportsmanlike, although I felt that way about it at first. Thinking it over I decided differently.

They have several means of catching fish by poison and I must say that it is a far better way than that of some of the game hogs in this country who dynamite lakes and rivers for fish, killing far more than they can get, while with the poison the fish not taken soon recover and are as lively as ever.

Our Indians paddled into a small inlet of the river one day where there is quite a deep pool that back-waters in. Hauling the canoe out on land they proceeded to fill it with haiarry vines and water. With heavy sticks they crushed these vines. As I looked on with interest, one Indian pointed to the liquid and said, “Kill um,” meaning that it was poison.

After the vines were well crushed they tipped the contents of the canoe into the pool and within five minutes a great quantity of fish arose and floated on the surface. They collected the largest and best of these for food and as soon as the poison in the pool had thinned out the other fish recovered and were as well as ever. I was afraid that the poison would render the fish unfit for food but found that it did not affect them at all in that manner. It certainly was an easy way to catch fish and for a party as large as ours, the twenty blacks and the group of Indian hunters, it took a lot of fish and game to feed us.

Probably the most interesting method of catching fish as practiced by these clever Indians was by means of poisoned grasshoppers. They made a paste of the leaves of the quanamia, a strong narcotic plant. Catching large grasshoppers they filled the stomachs of these insects with the paste and tossed them into the water. The fish would leap up and swallow the grasshoppers, only soon after to turn, belly up, and float on the surface where they were picked up.

Here we found the game more abundant than ever, which was natural as we were far out of the haunts of blacks and Dutch, except for the few “pork knockers,” or tramp diamond miners, and there were probably no more than a score all up and down the fields.

Several kinds of animals were shot, but the favorite food was deer and labbas. The tapirs are like great hogs and their meat is rather tough though nourishing. The labbas also belong to the hog family but are about as big as jack rabbits. Small game birds were also plentiful. The maams were the best game birds, about the size of a very small turkey and much like them. The white people call them bush turkeys but scientists say that they do not properly belong to the turkey family. We didn’t care what family they belonged to, we found the meat delicious.

I do not mean that the game was so plentiful that it came down to us and begged to be shot. But our Indian hunters seldom went out without bringing back some meat. It was a cheerful sight to see three or four hunters come marching in, each with a part of a great tapir or deer slung over his back. We were sure of “fresh pork,” as we called it, for days.

One of our Indians had hunted steadily for three days without any success and he was getting decidedly sore about it. He had not seen an animal in any of his wanderings. When he returned empty handed on the third day I tried to cheer him.

“How come, buck man?”

“No thing,” he grunted.

“Too much sit down,” I said.

“No sit down!” he protested. “Wakwakwak (walk), all tam wak. Me no see. How can shoot um me no see?”

There was no argument there. If he saw nothing he certainly could bag no game. But this Indian was superstitious, as all are. He got an idea that there was black magic in my camera, and it bothered him.

“Too much humbug,” he said, pointing to my camera which I happened to have with me. “You tak picture all tam, put um picture on paper and sho all mans. Deer know this and be bexed (vexed) see um picture on paper. Run away. How go for catch if no see?”

This was a lengthy outburst for an Indian. He had reference to my taking his picture as he came into camp with various kinds of game over his shoulders. He believed that the dead game knew its picture was taken and that its spirit warned the living game to keep away because the picture taking was an insult. He did not reason that the game would be warned to keep away from him to save its life, but only to escape the insult of having its picture taken. Hence his argument that the game was “bexed” and kept out of sight.

“No get um. Must catch beena,” he said, earnestly. A “beena” is some sort of a rite or charm that the hunters go through in order to give them good fortune or luck or whatever it is they most desire. There is a different sort of beena for each thing. I gave him a half day holiday to “catch beena.” Being especially anxious to bag deer he was going to “catch deer beena.” The sly fellow had hidden away somewhere, just for this emergency, the nose of a deer.

Beena may bring good luck but I would not care for good luck earned in that manner. This chap heated the nose of the deer on a shovel over coals until it fairly sizzled. Then he cut slashes, not deep, but enough to draw blood, on his chest, arms and legs and rubbed that hot, greasy nose into the cuts. He believed that the fat thus entering his body or blood would enable him to get all the deer he wished, as it would give him power over them.

That afternoon he went out, and, sure enough, he returned with a big deer. I did not dare photograph it for fear the Indian would become frightened or discouraged, and leave. No power on earth could persuade him that it was due to any other reason than his beena that he got the deer.

As I explained, I took many pictures but lost the greater part of them through attempting to develop the films in the hot climate. Birds of unusual variety, to me, were photographed in plenty. The toucans were interesting birds. They would come quite close to us, and I managed to get a snapshot of one not more than ten feet away, just as he was apparently sharpening his gigantic beak on the shore gravel.

I found the Indians to be not only interesting but very likable chaps. I formed a strong friendship and they likewise became very friendly with me. I learned much of their language, had them at our logie for guests on a great many occasions and, after a manner, got so that I could talk well with them and learn much of their lives, their ambitions, their joys and sorrows. Their language is called “Akowoia.”

The taste of the Indians in food I could never learn, such as their terrible drinks, the smoked intestines and the eyes of animals which they cook as a great delicacy. Nor am I at all fond of their pastry. It is simply a dough made of flour, salt and soda mixed with river water and fried in much grease in a frying pan. But their cooked fresh fish, their boiled tapir and other game meats are always good, clean and appetizing.

CHAPTER XX
PICKING UP JUNGLE LORE

THE upper part of the Mazaruni River is no place for a white man to take up a permanent abode. Only once in a great while has a white man been known to live more than a year in that climate. I have heard of one or two who lived there for several years, but they finally died. It is a strange thing the lure of fortune. Such men know full well that no white man can escape death if he stays there for much more than six months. Yet each individual seems to feel that he will manage in some way to escape the dread and deadly jungle fever. He is having good luck getting diamonds, he stays on and on for “just a few more, just a few more,” so that he may go back wealthy, and then comes the fever and either death or a quick get-away. I could not then foresee the danger that faced me and was to bring a sudden end to my own adventures in the wilds.

Most white men have to use quinine continually. Dud. Lewis took quantities of it every day. He took so much that it made him temporarily deaf. I was afraid to take too much of it as I didn’t care to become deaf nor did I want the headaches that it frequently caused. Of course I took some from time to time, but in small quantities.

One great trouble was our lack of fresh water. We had only the river water and it was dangerous to drink that without purifying it. The Indians and even the blacks seemed to get along well enough on it and would drink right out of the river.

We had “steel drops” with us, a highly concentrated form of iron. One drop in a gallon of water was sufficient to remove the danger of disease from drinking the water. We also used bits of rusty iron. By keeping these in the water it was fairly safe, but it was always muddy. And it was always warm. I learned to get used to it. We used to keep it in jars and pails with a wet cloth over it in order to cool it.

While there were a few poisonous snakes about, they seemed no more plentiful than are the rattlesnakes, copperheads and moccasins in certain parts of the United States, and we had no trouble with them. I never saw any of the big boa constrictors or other snakes, that I had been told about, but presume there were plenty of them in the deep marshlands if one cared to hunt the reptiles.

Frequently I had seen Indians gliding about the river in the most peculiar and frail looking craft I had ever beheld.

“Make um woodskin,” the Indians told me.

I examined one and it was nothing more than the bark of a tree. Not at all like the birch bark used by our Indians, nor like rough elm bark, but more like the tough, smooth bark of the basswood or ironwood trees at home.

One time I was fortunate enough to see and photograph the whole process of woodskin canoe making. I went with the Indians back somewhat from the water to where they had located a giant woodskin tree. These trees start at the base with mammoth trunks, which taper up for fifteen feet or more before they continue as a straight and rather symmetrical trunk. The bark of the tapering part is useless in canoe making and so the Indians build a frail platform or foot rest of poles that will enable them to reach the straight, even part of the trunk with an axe. Standing there they soon have the tree felled. But before it falls they build a supporting frame so that it will not lie on the ground, because if this heavy tree were resting its weight on the ground it would be impossible to remove the bark.

When the tree is down and resting on the frames upon which it fell, the Indians arrange poles that will enable them to stand and reach one side. They cut the bark clear around the tree at the length which they wish for the canoe, then they slit the bark in an even line between the two cuts and gradually pry it off, putting in braces until it is wedged open sufficiently to slip off the trunk.

Two braces are then fitted into this, and it is left to dry; as the drying takes place the ends are drawn up a little. That is all there is to it. The canoe is ready for ordinary smooth water traveling, once it is dry, for in the shrinking the braces are so wedged in that they will never pull out. For smooth water paddling the canoe is left with both ends open. But for rough water, in currents and rapids, it is necessary to stop up each end with a sort of vegetable wax drawn from trees much as we get pitch from pine. This wax hardens and thus closes the ends.

There were many things to learn before we were quite comfortable. We had learned how to keep our food, how to have the Indians hunt and cut wood for us, which was all the work they did. For this they were paid the equivalent of $10 a month each, and clothing and lodging. They wouldn’t mine—at least there are few Indians who will mine. They would rather have an old red flannel shirt than a peck of diamonds.

We learned about keeping iron in the drinking water and we put tin grease cups on all of the supporting poles of our logie, and of all buildings and shelters, to keep out the stinging ants and other insects.

These insects were decidedly troublesome and we had to keep constant watch of ourselves to prevent serious trouble with them. There is an especially large mosquito which not only stings fearfully but deposits larvae beneath the skin. It is almost impossible to notice this at the time but it soon becomes a live worm in there, and then a great sore breaks out, caused by the bug so that he can crawl out and grow into a mosquito and sting someone else, and start another bug, and so on.

Worse than this were the “nail beetles.” These chaps bore beneath the finger nails and toe nails. They do this boring so cleverly that frequently one does not feel it at all. They, too, deposit larvae, and the result is extremely dangerous as great sores come up beneath the nails and one is likely to lose not only the nail, but the finger or toe from blood poisoning, if even worse effects from the poisoning do not set in.

We used a ten per cent solution of carbolic acid as a preventive. Constant watchfulness was the price of freedom from becoming nesting places for ’skeeters and bugs.

If we had food in kettles we had to set the legs in cups of oil to keep out the bugs.

Not far from where our mine is located is the property of the late Major John Purroy Mitchel, former mayor of New York City and later an aviator, who was killed while in training at a Southern aviation field. He knew this country well and had had many adventures down through here where he had considerable success in mining diamonds.

CHAPTER XXI
THE FIRST DIAMOND!

OF course, once landed at the site of our diamond mine, we had to have a comfortable, permanent home. A “logie” it is called here, doubtless a corruption of the Italian “loggia” which has as its equivalent in English the word “lodge.” Strictly speaking, a logie is a building that is partly open at the sides and consists of more veranda than closed in room. Ours we had built so that it could be closed in, but except in driving rains the sides were always open. We could screen them to keep out mosquitoes and keep quite comfortable.

We selected a site that was a little back from the river, out of the dampness, on a high and dry sloping hillside. We made a little clearing, but with the forest all about three sides to protect us from high winds. Instead of driving foundation posts we cut the trees and used the stumps where possible. This slope left a sort of basement where we could store such things as rain might injure but insects could not.

We did not trust to palms and reeds for roofing but brought tarred roofing paper with us. This was much better, storm-proof, and helped keep insects away as they are never fond of tar. Facing the river we had a wide veranda. Inside we made good but crude tables and chairs, a desk, and strong supports for our hammocks. The rear end was but a step from the ground, but the front end was some fifteen feet up. It made us a snug and comfortable home for the more than four months we were digging into the gravel of the river banks for “shiners.”

Meanwhile we got busy with our mining. Jimmy acted as our cook and personal servant. The captain was an expert in this river life, the Indians were chopping wood and bringing in game and fish, the blacks were busy now getting the mine started and later in digging, so that we were a very busy and quite contented colony.

Diamond mining on the Mazaruni is not unlike gold dust mining. The diamonds, like the gold, being the heaviest substance in the gravel, naturally settle down to the bottom when a sieve is twisted about so as to make the water move around and around. The centrifugal force sends the heavy material to the bottom.

We started in with pick and shovel. Later we built a “Long Tom,” which is a wooden trough through which water runs, there being several compartments and cleats. The gravel is put in at the upper end and carried down by the rush of water. The gravel, being lighter, is carried on down and off, the diamonds are mixed in with tin ore, pulsite and ordinary quartz, all of these being heavy.

Finally the residue, after the gravel is washed out, is put in a sieve and either “jigged” by hand or by means of wire supports, over a box of water.

The soil was made up of loose gravel and also of conglomerate, not quite solid, yet not loose like gravel, and much muscle with the picks was needed to loosen the stuff.

Once our sieves were ready we could scarcely wait to get busy. Gravel was shoveled into the first sieve and one of the blacks, an expert “jigger,” took it up and started the peculiar circular motion.

“Lucky baby,” he said. The men who do this work are called “jiggers” and they call the sieves “baby.”

We watched his every move. Around and around the sieve went. He paused. We stretched our necks to see but he merely scooped off the lighter top gravel that his circular motion had forced up, then continued.

Over and over he repeated this, for about an hour, continually washing it, the water dripping through the fine mesh of the sieve. Then it was ready. With a final “swish” of the sieve and another washing, with the last handful of gravel brushed off, the contents, just a few handfuls of material, were dumped on a crude table and spread out with a sweep of the hand.

“Here’s one!”

It looked bright enough, but Lewis, who had been prospecting there and had seen them mine diamonds, had learned the difference between the dull sparkle of ordinary quartz and the brilliant sheen of diamonds; he took up the particle, pressed it between two knife blades and crushed it.

“Everything here except diamonds can be crushed by that sort of pressure,” he said.

“Here’s one!” I picked it out. It would not crush.

“Yes. That’s a diamond. About half a carat,” said Lewis.

I have that tiny glittering pebble now and hope to always keep it. The first diamond from our mine! We found a few more in that lot, none very large, but all of them of value. None are too small, in fact, to be of some value. We find them in various colors, pure white, which is the average sort; brilliant blue white, the most valuable and rare; pink or rose, also quite valuable; and yellow, not so valuable. Also a few green and black. Most of the stones we get down there are too small for jewelry, and are used in commerce. Drills are made of them and machinery for boring, and for probably a hundred different uses in manufacture.