THIRD pay, no highways to keep up, no poor to maintain, nor army nor navy to supply; he lies in his hammock both JOURNEY. night and day (for he has no chair or bed, neither does he want them), and in it he forms his bow, and makes his arrows, and repairs his fishing tackle. But as soon as he has consumed his provisions, he then rouses himself, and, like the lion, scours the forest in quest of food. He plunges into the river after the deer and tapir, and swims across it; passes through swamps and quagmires, and never fails to obtain a sufficient supply of food. Should the approach of night stop his career, while he is hunting the wild boar, he stops for the night, and continues the chase the next morning. In my way through the wilds to the Portuguese frontier, I had a proof of this: we were eight in number, six Indians, a negro, and myself. About ten o'clock in the morning, we observed the feet-mark of the wild boars; we judged by the freshness of the marks that they had passed that way early the same morning. As we were not gifted, like the hound, with scent, and as we had no dog with us, we followed their track by the eye. The Indian after game is as sure with his eye as the dog is with his nose. We followed the herd till three in the afternoon, then gave up the chase for the present; made our fires close to a creek where there was plenty of fish, and then arranged the hammocks. In an hour the Indians shot more fish with their arrows than we could consume. The night was beautifully serene and clear, and the moon. shone as bright as day. Next morn we rose at dawn, got breakfast, packed up, each took his burden, and then we put ourselves on the track of the wild boars, which we had been following the day before. We supposed that they, too, would sleep that night in the forest, as we had done; and thus the delay on our part would be no disadvantage to us. This was just the case, for about nine o'clock their THIRD JOURNEY. feet-marks became fresher and fresher: we now doubled our pace, but did not give mouth like hounds. We pushed on in silence, and soon came up with them; there were above one hundred of them; we killed six, and the rest took off in different directions. But to the point. Amongst us the needy man works from light to dark for a maintenance. Should this man chance to acquire a fortune, he soon changes his habits. No longer under "strong necessity's supreme command," he contrives to get out of bed betwixt nine and ten in the morning. His servant helps him to dress, he walks on a soft carpet to his breakfast table, his wife pours out his tea, and his servant hands him his toast. After breakfast, the doctor advises a little gentle exercise in the carriage for an hour or so. At dinner-time he sits down to a table groaning beneath the weight of heterogeneous luxury: there he rests upon a chair for three or four hours, eats, drinks, and talks (often unmeaningly) till tea is announced. He proceeds slowly to the drawing-room, and there spends the best part of his time in sitting, till his wife tempts him with something warm for supper. After supper, he still remains on his chair at rest, till he retires to rest for the night. He mounts leisurely up stairs upon a carpet, and enters his bed-room there, one would hope, that at least he mutters a prayer or two, though perhaps not on bended knee: he then lets himself drop into a soft and downy bed, over which has just passed the comely Jenny's warming-pan. Now, could the Indian in his turn see this, he would call the white men a lazy, indolent set. Perhaps then, upon due reflection, you would draw this conclusion; that men will always be indolent where there is no object to rouse them. As the Indian of Guiana has no idea whatever of communicating his intentions by writing, he has fallen upon THIRD a plan of communication sure and simple. When two or three families have determined to come down the river JOURNEY. and pay you a visit, they send an Indian beforehand with Indian method of a string of beads. You take one bead off every day; and communion the day that the string is beadless, they arrive at your cation. house. In finding their way through these pathless wilds, the sun is to them what Ariadne's clue was to Theseus. When he is on the meridian, they generally sit down, and rove onwards again as soon as he has sufficiently declined to the west; they require no other compass. When in chase, they break a twig on the bushes as they pass by every three or four hundred paces, and this often prevents them from losing their way on their return. You will not be long in the forests of Guiana, before you perceive how very thinly they are inhabited. You may wander for a week together without seeing a hut. The wild beasts, snakes, the swamps, the trees, the uncurbed luxuriance of everything around you, conspire to inform you that man has no habitation here-man has seldom passed this way. THIRD JOURNEY. CHAPTER III. Discovery of a large Coulacanara snake.-A Bush-master.-Stag swallowed by a Boa.-Negroes and the snake.—Arrangements for the attack. — The snake struck.-Carrying off the enemy.-A snake in a bag.—An unquiet night.-Dissection of the snake.-Daddy Quashi and his dread of snakes.-Capture of a Coulacanara.-Vultures and their food.— Habits of Vultures.-The Aura vulture.-Black vultures.-Severe blisters. An inquisitive Jaguar.-Fish shooting.-Goatsuckers and Campanero. LET us now return to natural history. There was a person making shingles, with twenty or thirty negroes, not far from Mibiri-hill. I had offered a reward to any of them who would find a good-sized snake in the forest, and come and let me know where it was. Often had these negroes looked for a large snake, and as often been disappointed. One Sunday morning I met one of them in the forest, and asked him which way he was going: he said he was going towards Warratilla creek to hunt an armadillo: and he had his little dog with him. On coming back, about noon, the dog began to bark at the root of a large tree, which had been upset by the whirlwind, and was lying there in a gradual state of decay. The negro said, he thought his dog was barking at an acouri, which had probably taken refuge under the tree, and he went up with an intention to kill it he there saw a snake, and hastened back to inform me of it. search of a snake. The sun had just passed the meridian in a cloudless sky; THIRD there was scarcely a bird to be seen, for the winged inhabit- JOURNEY. ants of the forest, as though overcome by heat, had retired Goes in to the thickest shade: all would have been like midnight silence, were it not for the shrill voice of the Pi-pi-yo, every now and then resounding from a distant tree. I was sitting with a little Horace in my hand, on what had once been the steps which formerly led up to the now mouldering and dismantled building. The negro and his little dog came down the hill in haste, and I was soon informed that a snake had been discovered; but it was a young one, called the Bush-master, a rare and poisonous snake. I instantly rose up, and laying hold of the eight-foot lance, which was close by me, "Well then, Daddy,” said I, "we'll go and have a look at the snake." I was barefoot, with an old hat, and check shirt, and trousers on, and a pair of braces to keep them up. The negro had his cutlass, and as we ascended the hill, another negro, armed with a cutlass, joined us, judging, from our pace, that there was something to do. The little dog came along with us, and when we had got about half a mile in the forest, the negro stopped, and pointed to the fallen tree: all was still and silent: I told the negroes not to stir from the place where they were, and keep the little dog in, and that I would go in and reconnoitre. secures an enormous ara snake. I advanced up to the place slow and cautious. The Finds and snake was well concealed, but at last I made him out; it was a Coulacanara, not poisonous, but large enough to have Coulacancrushed any of us to death. On measuring him afterwards, he was something more than fourteen feet long. This species of snake is very rare, and much thicker, in proportion to his length, than any other snake in the forest. A coulacanara of fourteen feet in length is as thick as a common boa of twenty-four. After skinning this snake I |