“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.