Only here and there, groups of trees, lower than the surrounding ones, and between them spaces of ground, which had evidently once been clearings and were not yet totally re-covered by jungle growth, gave proof of Sakai nomadism even in other ages. No other sign of the past, and my query, perhaps absurd, repeats itself. Am I before the savage infancy of a people, or the spent senility of a race, lost sight of in the course of centuries? If the latter, would there not be some relic left of its existence; a fragment of stone or concrete substance inscribed with the figures of its period? Is it possible that everything has been buried from the sight of modern man, under the rank luxuriance of grass and bush? Or is it not I who vainly dream under the impression of the forest's mute grandeur and the thousands of voices that to-day awake its echoes and to-morrow leave none behind?
Footnotes:
[4] In another chapter, wherein I describe the superstitions and beliefs of the Sakais, I have spoken of the custom they have of depositing food, tobacco, etc., on the tombs of their dead for a week after they have been buried. Naturally everything, not devoured by beast or insect, rots upon the spot and the seeds of the fruit find their way into the ground. For this reason many new trees spring up in groups, obtaining their first alimentation from the dissolution of the corpse.
[5] The sikoi grows on high mountains and the women have to take great pains in cleaning it before it is cooked. It is a grain something like our millet and has good nutritive qualities.
The Sakays mix it with water and make a sort of "polenta" cooking it, as usual, in their bamboo saucepans. It is a favourite dish with them when eaten with monkey flesh, rats, pieces of snake, lizards, beetles and various other insects which would be of rare entomological value to any museum that possessed them.
Ignorant of the repugnant compound, that gave such a savoury taste to the sikoi, at the beginning of my sojourn with the Sakays, I ate it with relish after seasoning it with a little salt, an article not much used amongst my mountain friends. But when I came to know what ingredients gave it flavour I refused it, as kindly as I could not to offend their susceptibilities, because my stomach rebelled against the mess.
CHAPTER VII.
The snares of civilized life—Faust's invocation—The dangers of the forest—Serpents—A perilous adventure—Carnivorous and herbivorous animals—The "sladan"—The man of the wood.