“Know you what ’midst such fertile scenes
That awful voice of famine means?”
To such a question these Indians might answer “yes.” A more improvident race does not exist; as long as they can satisfy their immediate wants they are content. They seldom live on the banks of the large rivers, but build their huts—two or three of which often constitute a village—near some retired creek. There they plant a little cassava, and when that is exhausted they pack their household goods on their backs, and, as they express it, “walk” i.e., they wander about wherever fancy leads them, pitching their camp sometimes for a day, and sometimes for weeks in one place. In an indolent fashion they will hunt and fish, and, when they have no game, live on wild berries; occasionally when they have anything to sell they will paddle leisurely down to the Settlements and paddle back in the same easy manner. Time is no object to them, except when a paiworie[49] feast and dance are on the tapis. To be present on such an occasion they will travel great distances, in an incredibly short time, they will ascend and descend rivers, cross mountains, penetrate forests, and die from exhaustion rather than forego the effort necessary to obtain a drink of paiworie. Our friends had no fresh fish, but we obtained a few dried pacu, averaging five or six pounds each, and some fish arrows, of which we were in want, in exchange for fish-hooks and a little salt. Indians are very fond of salt, and as they can only obtain it in trade it forms a good article of barter.
We did not camp that evening until we had placed some distance between ourselves and the natives, as, when the latter think that anything is to be obtained from white men, they will follow and keep near them as long as they can, although the direction may be the opposite to that in which they themselves were originally travelling.
The next day the river was freer than usual from rapids, and we were enabled to replenish our larder, which up to the present had been sadly deficient in fresh meat. Some golden red howling monkeys—baboons the men called them—were our first acquisition, and the chase they gave us through the forest, though very amusing, covered us with garrapatas—large ticks—and the equally annoying bête rouge. The latter insect is of a bright scarlet, and so small as hardly to be distinguished, but it causes great irritation, and if the skin is scratched it ulcerates, and like all other sores and wounds in the tropics is difficult to heal. Then we shot two young alligators each about three feet in length; it was strange that although on the Mazaruni we saw several baby alligators, yet we never saw any large ones. Of game birds we bagged a paui, curassow,[50] and two maroudis, a species of wild turkey. The Indians say that the maroudi obtained its bare red throat by swallowing a fire-stick which it mistook for a glow-worm.
Two sorts of water-birds, were very plentiful, namely: ducklars[51] and curri-curris.[52] We did not often fire at the former, unless we were very badly off for fresh meat, as, irrespective of their ability to carry off an incredible amount of the largest shot, they are fishy, ill-flavoured birds. But the curri-curris, so called from their peculiar cry, are by no means to be despised, and probably being aware of their eatable properties generally disappeared into the thick bush, just out of range. These birds are of an olive and bronze colour, feed snipe-like on worms, and have a heavy flight, similar to that of an owl.
Sometimes we startled a little sun-bittern, and occasionally we crept near enough to watch him in his motions whilst fascinating an insect; then his body would writhe and twist, his slender neck undulating like a serpent’s folds, but all the time with head quiet and eye steadily fixed on his victim; finally there was a quick darting movement, and there was no more insect. Our day’s sport was brought to a conclusion by spearing a very large electric eel. It was Saturday night, and according to custom McTurk’s cry of “Grog-oh” speedily brought the crew to receive their weekly glass—dose they called it—of brandy, and this well-earned medicine infused such life into their tired bodies that we were kept awake for a long time by the monotonous strains of an old fiddle with which they were “making dance.”
The next day we remained in our camp below Turesie cataract, and as somebody shot a deer, and somebody else a maroudi, we had a grand Sunday dinner consisting of:
Soup.
Macaw.