ILLUSTRATIONS

[Sketch map]Frontispiece
[“Jimmy”]facing page 4
[We Worked Steadily up the Dangerous River]20
[A Jungle “Hotel”]20
[Once in a While a Boat Shot Past Us]46
[At Times a Portage Must be Made]46
[The First Jungle Indians We Saw]52
[An Indian Fisherman]52
[“Bringing Home the Bacon”]60
[They Seemed Glad to Pose for Us]84
[Jungle Huntsmen]84
[At Fourteen an Indian Girl Must Be Able to Cook Cassava]94
[A Primitive Sugar Cane Press]94
[Two Quick Puffs, a Flutter, and the Bird Drops to Earth]98
[My Jungle Friends]104
[Usually Our Hunters Were Successful]116
[The Toucan Makes an Interesting Pet]118
[Abraham, Felling a Woodskin Tree]122
[Preparing Woodskin Bark for Canoe]124
[Finished Woodskin Canoe with Ends Open]124
[Our Jungle Home]128
[An Interior View of Our “Logie”]132
[A Long Tom Diamond Washer]134
[Jiggers Separating Diamonds from Gravel]134

UP THE MAZARUNI FOR DIAMONDS

CHAPTER I
“ARE YOU GAME TO TRY IT?”

“HERE’S a queer looking letter,” I said to myself one day early in the spring of 1917. I could hardly make out the postmark. It was something of a surprise to receive a letter from British Guiana, as I finally deciphered it, but the contents were even more surprising.

The letter was from my friend Dudley P. Lewis.

“I need a partner in a diamond mining venture,” he wrote. “Are you game to try it out with me? It will be a long trip full of adventures and dangers, but there are diamonds here to be had for the digging.”