 Prologue 2. Green Mansions. Green Mansions. A Romance of the Tropical Forest by W. H. Hudson. It is a cause of very great regret to me that this task has taken so much longer a time than I had expected for its completion. It is now many months, over a year in fact, since I wrote to Georgetown announcing my intention of publishing, in a very few months, the whole truth about Mr. Abel. Hardly less could have been looked for from his nearest friend, and I had hoped that the discussion in the newspapers would have ceased at all events until the appearance of the Promised Book. It has not been so, and at this distance from Guyana I was not aware of how much conjectural matter was being printed week by week in the local press, some of which must have been painful reading to Mr. Abel's friends. A darkened chamber, the existence of which had never been suspected in that familiar house in Main Street, furnished only with an ebony stand on which stood a cinerary urn, its surface ornamented with flour and leaf and thorn, and winding through it all the figure of a serpent, an inscription too of seven short words which no one could understand or rightly interpret, and finally the disposal of the mysterious ashes. That was all there was relating to an untold chapter in a man's life for imagination to work on. Let us hope that now at last the romance weaving will come to an end. It was, however, but natural that the keenest curiosity should have been excited, not only because of that peculiar and indescribable charm of the man, which all recognized and which won all hearts, but also because of that hidden chapter, that sojourn in the desert about which he preserved silence. It was felt in a vague way by his intimates that he had met with unusual experiences which had profoundly affected him and changed the course of his life. To me alone was the truth known, and I must now tell, briefly as possible, how my great friendship and close intimacy with him came about. When, in 1887, I arrived in Georgetown to take up an appointment in a public office, I found Mr. Abel an old resident there. A man of means and a favorite in society. Yet he was an alien, a Venezuelan, one of that turbulent people on our border whom the colonists have always looked on as their natural enemies. The story told to me was that about twelve years before that time he had arrived at Georgetown from some remote district in the interior. That he had journeyed alone on foot across half the continent to the coast, and at first appeared among them a young stranger, penniless in rags, wasted almost to a skeleton by fever and misery of all kinds, his face blackened by long exposure to sun and wind. Friendless but with little English it was a hard struggle for him to live, but he managed, somehow, and eventually letters from Caracas informed him that a considerable property of which he had been deprived was once more his own, and he was also invited to return to his country to take his part in the Government of the Republic. But Mr. Abel, though young, had already outlived political passions and aspirations, and apparently even the love of his country. At all events he elected to stay where he was. His enemies, he would say smilingly, were his best friends, and one of the first uses he made of his fortune was to buy that house in Main Street, which was afterwards like a home to me. I must state here that my friend's full name was Abel Guaivas de Arganzola, but in his early days in Georgetown he was called by his Christian name only, and later he wished to be known simply as Mr. Abel. I had no sooner made his acquaintance than I ceased to wonder at the esteem and even affection with which he, a Venezuelan, was regarded in this British colony. All knew and liked him, and the reason of it was the personal charm of the man, his kindly disposition, his manner with women which pleased them and excited no man's jealousy, not even the old hot tempered planters, with a very young and pretty and lightheaded wife. His love of little children, of all wild creatures, of nature, and whatsoever was furthest removed from the common material interests and concerns of a purely commercial community. The things which excited other men, politics, sport, and the price of crystals, were outside of his thoughts, and when men had done with them for a season, when like the tempest they had blown their fill in office, in clubroom, and house, and wanted a change, it was a relief to turn to Mr. Abel and get him to discourse of his world, the world of nature, and the spirit. It was all felt a good thing to have a Mr. Abel in Georgetown. That it was indeed good for me I quickly discovered. I had certainly not expected to meet in such a place with any person to share my tastes. That love of poetry which has been the chief passion and delight of my life, but such a one I had found in Mr. Abel. It surprised me that he, suckled on the literature of Spain, and a reader of only ten or twelve years of English literature, possessed the knowledge of our modern poetry as intimate as my own, and a love of it equally great. This feeling brought us together, and made us, too, the nervous, olive-skinned, Hispano-American of the tropics, and the phlegmatic blue-eyed Saxon of the cold north, one in spirit, and more than brothers. Many were the daylight hours we spent together, and tired the sun with talking. Many, past counting, the precious evenings in that restful house of his where I was an almost daily guest. I had not looked for such happiness, nor, he often said, had he. A result of this intimacy was that the vague idea concerning his hidden past, that some unusual experience had profoundly affected him, and perhaps changed the whole course of his life, did not diminish, but on the contrary became accentuated, and was often in my mind. The change in him was almost painful to witness, whenever our wandering talk touched on the subject of the Aborigines, and of the knowledge he had acquired of their character and languages when living or travelling among them. All that made his conversation most engaging, the lively, curious mind, the wit, the gaiety of spirit tinged with a tender melancholy, appeared to fade out of it, even the expression of his face would change, becoming hard and set, and he would deal you out facts in a dry mechanical way as if reading them in a book. It grieved me to note this, but I dropped no hint of such a feeling, and would never have spoken about it but for a quarrel which came at last to make the one brief solitary break in that close friendship of years. I got into a bad state of health, and Abel was not only much concerned about it, but annoyed, as if I had not traded him well by being ill, and he would even say that I could get well if I wished to. I did not take this seriously, but one morning, when calling to see me at the office, he attacked me in a way that made me downright angry with him. He told me that indolence and the use of stimulants was the cause of my bad health. He spoke in a mocking way, with a presence of not quite meaning it, but the feeling could not be wholly disguised. Stung by his reproaches, I blurted out that he had no right to talk to me, even in fun, in such a way. Yes, he said, getting serious, he had the best right, that of our friendship. He would be no true friend if he kept his peace about such a matter. Then, in my haste, I retorted that to me the friendship between us did not seem so perfect and complete as it did to him. One condition of friendship is that the partners in it should be known to each other. He had had my whole life in mind open to him, to read it as in a book. His life was a closed and clasped volume to me. His face darkened, and after a few moments silent reflection he got up and left me with a cold goodbye, and without that hand-grasp which had been customary between us. After his departure I had the feeling that a great loss, a great calamity had befallen me, but I was still smarting at his too candid criticism, all the more because in my heart I acknowledged its truth. And that night, lying awake, I repented of the cruel retort I had made, and resolved to ask his forgiveness and leave it to him to determine the question of our future relations. But he was beforehand with me, and with the morning came a letter begging my forgiveness and asking me to go that evening to dine with him. We were alone, and during dinner and afterwards, when we sat smoking and sipping black coffee in the veranda, we were unusually quiet, even to gravity, which caused the two white-clad servants that waited on us, the brown-faced, subtle-eyed old Hindu butler, and an almost blue-black young Guyanin Negro, to direct many furtive glances at their master's face. They were accustomed to see him in a more genial mood when he had a friend to dine. To me the change in his manner was not surprising. From the moment of seeing him I had divine that he had determined to open the shut and classed volume of which I had spoken, that the time had now come for him to speak. End of the prologue. Chapter 1 of Green Mansions This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording is by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Green Mansions A Romance of the Tropical Forest by W. H. Hudson Chapter 1 I know that we are cool, he said, and regret that we hurt each other. I am not sorry that it happened. I deserved your reproach. A hundred times I have wished to tell you the whole story of my travels and adventures among the savages, and one of the reasons which prevented me was the fear that it would have an unfortunate effect on our friendship. That was precious, and I desired above everything to keep it. I must think no more about that now. I must think only of how I am to tell you my story. I will begin at a time when I was twenty-three. It was early in life to be in the thick of politics, and in trouble to the extent of having to fly my country to save my liberty, perhaps my life. Every nation, someone remarks, has the government it deserves, and Venezuela certainly has the one it deserves and that suits it best. We call it a republic, not only because it is not one, but also because a thing must have a name, and to have a good name or a fine name is very convenient, especially when you want to borrow money. If the Venezuelans thinly distributed over an area of half a million square miles, mostly illiterate peasants, half-breeds and indigenes, were educated intelligent men, zealous only for the public wheel, it would be possible for them to have a real republic. They have instead a government by cliques, tempered by revolution, and a very good government it is, in harmony with the physical conditions of the country and the national temperament. Now it happens that the educated men, representing your higher classes, are so few that there are not many persons unconnected by ties of blood or marriage, with prominent members of the political groups to which they belong. By this you will see how easy and almost inevitable it is that we should become accustomed to look on conspiracy and revolt against the regnant party, the man of another clique, as only in the natural order of things. In the event of failure such outbreaks are punished, but they are not regarded as immoral. On the contrary, men of the highest intelligence and virtue among us are seen taking a leading part in these adventures. Whether such a condition of things is intrinsically wrong or not, or would be wrong in some circumstances and is not wrong, because inevitable, in others, I cannot pretend you decide, and all this tiresome profusion is only to enable you to understand how I, a young man of unblemished character, not a soldier by profession, not ambitious of political distinction, wealthy for that country, popular in society, a lover of social pleasures, of books, of nature actuated as I believe by the highest motives, allowed myself to be drawn very readily by friends and relations into a conspiracy to overthrow the government of the moment, with the object of replacing it by more worthy men ourselves to it. Our adventure failed because the authorities got wind of the affair and matters were precipitated. Our leaders at the moment happened to be scattered over the country. Some were abroad, and a few hot-headed men of the party, who were in Caracas just then and probably feared arrest, struck a rash blow. The president was attacked in the street and wounded. But the attackers were seized, and some of them shot on the following day. When the news reached me, I was at a distance from the capital, staying with a friend on an estate he owned on the river Quebrada, Handa, in the state of Guarico, some fifteen to twenty miles from the town of Zarazza. My friend, an officer in the army, was a leader in the conspiracy, and as I was the only son of a man who had been greatly hated by the minister of war, it became necessary for us both to fly for our lives. In the circumstances we could not look to be pardoned, even on the score of youth. Our first decision was to escape to the sea coast, but as the risk of a journey to La Guerra or any other port of embarkation on the north side of the country seemed too great, we made our way in a contrary direction to the Oronoco, and downstream to Angostura. Now, when we had reached this comparatively safe breathing place, safe at all events for the moment, I changed my mind about leaving or attempting to leave the country. Since boyhood I had taken a very peculiar interest in that vast and almost unexplored territory we possess south of the Oronoco, with its countless unmapped rivers and trackless forests, and in its savage inhabitants, with their ancient customs and character, unadulterated by contact with Europeans. To visit this primitive wilderness had been a cherished dream, and I had to some extent even prepared myself for such an adventure by mastering more than one of the Indian dialects of the northern states of Venezuela. And now, finding myself on the south side of our great river, with unlimited time at my disposal, I determined to gratify this wish. My companion took his departure towards the coast, while I set about making preparations and hunting up information from those who had traveled in the interior to trade with the savages. I decided eventually to go back upstream and penetrate to the interior in the western part of Guyana, and the Amazonian territory bordering on Columbia and Brazil, and to return to Angostura in about six months' time. I had no fear of being arrested in the semi-independent, and in most part savage region, as the Guyana authorities concerned themselves little enough with the political upheavals at Caracas. The first five or six months I spent in Guyana, after leaving the city of refuge, were eventful enough to satisfy a moderately adventurous spirit. A complacent government employee at Angostura had provided me with a passport, in which it was set down, for few to read, that my object in visiting the interior was to collect information concerning the native tribes, the vegetable products of the country, and other knowledge which would be of advantage to the republic, and the authorities were requested to afford me protection and assist me in my pursuits. I assented the Orinoco, making occasional expeditions to the small Christian settlements in the neighborhood of the Wright Bank, also to the Indian villages, and traveling in this way, seeing and learning much. In about three months I reached the river Metal. During this period I amused myself by keeping a journal, a record of personal adventures, impressions of the country and people, both semi-civilized and savage, and as my journal grew I began to think that on my return at some future time to Caracas, it might prove useful and interesting to the public, and also procure me fame, which thought proved pleasurable and a great incentive, so that I began to observe things more narrowly and to study expression. But the book was not to be. From the mouth of the Metal I journeyed on, intending to visit the settlement of Atahapo, where the great river Guaviere, with other rivers, empties itself into the Orinoco. But I was not destined to reach it, for at the small settlement of Manipuri I fell ill of a low fever, and here ended the first half year of my wanderings, about which no more need be told. A more miserable place than Manipuri, for a man to be ill of a low fever in, could not well be imagined. The settlement, composed of mean hovels, with a few large structures of mud or plastered wattle, thatched with palm leaves, was surrounded by water, marsh, and forest, the breeding place of myriads of croaking frogs and of clouds of mosquitoes, even to one imperfect health existence in such a place would have been a burden. The inhabitants mustered about eighty or ninety, mostly Indians of that degenerate class frequently to be met with in small trading outposts. The savages of Guyana are great drinkers, but not drunkards in our sense, since their fermented liquors contain so little alcohol that inordinate quantities must be swallowed to produce intoxication. In the settlements they prefer the white man's more potent poisons, with a result that in a small place like Manipuri one can see enacted, as on a stage, the last act in the great American tragedy, to be succeeded doubtless by other and possibly greater tragedies. My thoughts at that period of suffering were pessimistic in the extreme. Sometimes, when the almost continuous rain held up for half a day, I would manage to creep out a short distance, but I was almost past making any exertion, scarcely caring to live, and taking absolutely no interest in the news from Caracas, which reached me at long intervals. At the end of two months, feeling a slight improvement in my health, and with it a returning interest in life and its affairs, it occurred to me to get out my diary and write a brief account of my sojourn at Manipuri. I had placed it for safety in a small deal-box, lent to me for the purpose by a Venezuelan trader, an old resident at the settlement by name Pantaleon, called by all Don Panta, one who openly kept half a dozen Indian wives in his house, and was noted for his dishonesty and greed, but who had proved himself a good friend to me. The box was in a corner of the wretched palm-thatch-table I inhabited, but on taking it out I discovered that for several weeks the rain had been dripping on it, and that the manuscript was reduced to a sodden pulp. I flung it upon the floor with a curse, and threw myself back on my bed with a groan. In that desponding state I was found by my Fred Panta, who was constant in his visits at all hours, and when in answer to his anxious inquiries I pointed to the pulpy mass on the mud floor, he turned it over with his foot, and then, bursting into a loud laugh, kicked it out, remarking that he had mistaken the object for some unknown reptile that had crawled in out of the rain. He effected to be astonished that I should regret its loss. It was all a true narrative, he exclaimed. If I wished to write a book for the stay-at-homes to read, I could easily invent a thousand lies far more entertaining than any real experiences. He had come to me, he said, to propose something. He had lived twenty years at that place, and had got accustomed to the climate, but it would not do for me to remain any longer if I wished to live. I must go away at once to a different country, to the mountains, where it was open and dry. And if you want quinine when you are there, he concluded, smell the wind when it blows from the south-west, and you will inhale it into your system, fresh from the forest. When I remarked despondingly that in my condition it would be impossible to quit menopury, he went on to say that a small party of Indians was now in the settlement that they had come not only to trade but to visit one of their own tribe, who was his wife, purchased some years ago from her father. And the money she cost me I have never regretted to this day, said he, for she is a good wife, not jealous, he added, with a curse on all the others. These Indians came all the way from the Cuenaveta Mountains and were of the Makuritari tribe. He, Panta, and better still his good wife would interest them on my behalf, and for a suitable reward they would take me by slow, easy stages to their own country, where I would be treated well and recover my health. This proposal, after I had considered it well, produced so good an effect on me that I not only gave a glad consent, but on the following day I was able to get about and begin the preparations for my journey with some spirit. In about eight days I bade good-bye to my generous friend Panta, whom I regarded, after having seen much of him, as a kind of savage beast that had sprung on me, not to rend, but to rescue from death, for we know that even cruel savage brutes and evil men have at times sweet, beneficent impulses, trying which they act in a way contrary to their natures, like passive agents of some higher power. It was a continual pain to travel in my weak condition, and the patience of my Indians was severely taxed, but they did not forsake me, and at last the entire distance, which I conjectured to be about sixty-five leagues, was accomplished, and at the end I was actually stronger and better in every way than at the start. From this time my progress towards complete recovery was rapid. The air, with or without any medicinal virtue blown from the Sincona trees in the far-off Andean forest, was tonic, and when I took my walks on the hillside above the Indian village, or later when able to climb to the summits, the world as seen from those wild Quinoveta mountains had a largeness and varied glory of scenery, peculiarly refreshing and delightful to the soul. With a Maccuritari tribe I passed some weeks, and the sweet sensations of returning health made me happy for a time, but such sensations seldom outlast compilessence. I was no sooner well again than I began to feel a restless spirit stirring in me. The monotony of savage life in this place became intolerable. After my long listless period the reaction had come, and I wished only for action, adventure, no matter how dangerous and for new scenes, new faces, new dialects. In the end I conceived the idea of going on to the Cassicchiari River, where I would find a few small settlements, and perhaps obtain help from the authorities there which would enable me to reach the Rio Negro. For it was now in my mind to follow that river to the Amazons and sow down to Para and the Atlantic coast. Leaving the Quinoveta Range I started with two of the Indians as guides and travelling companions, but their journey ended only half way to the river I wished to reach, and they left me with some friendly savages living on the Chunape, a tributary of the Cunocumana which flows to the Orinoco. Here I had no choice but to wait until an opportunity of attaching myself to some party of travelling Indians going south-west should arrive, for by this time I had expended the whole of my small capital in Ornaments and Calico, brought from Manipuri, so that I could no longer purchase any man's service. And perhaps it will be as well to state, at this point, just what I possessed. For some time I had worn nothing but sandals to protect my feet. My garments consisted of a single suit and one flannel shirt which I washed frequently, going shirtless while it was drying. Fortunately I had an excellent blue cloth cloak, durable and handsome, given to me by a friend at Angostura, whose prophecy on presenting it, that it would outlast me, very nearly came true. It served as a covering by night, and to keep a man warm and comfortable when travelling in cold and wet weather, no better garment was ever made. I had a revolver and metal cartridge box in my broad leather belt, also a good hunting knife with strong buck-horn handle, and a heavy blade about nine inches long. In the pocket of my cloak I had a pretty silver tinder-box and a match-box, to be mentioned again in this narrative, and one or two other trifling objects, these I was determined to keep until they could be kept no longer. During the tedious interval of waiting on the Chunape, I was told a flattering tale by the village Indians, which eventually caused me to abandon the proposed journey to the Rio Negro. These Indians wore necklets, like nearly all the Guyana savages, but one I observed possessed a necklace unlike that of the others, which greatly aroused my curiosity. It was made of thirteen gold plates, irregular in form, about as broad as a man's thumbnail, and linked together with fibres. I was allowed to examine it, and had no doubt that the pieces were of pure gold, beaten flat by the savages. When questioned about it, they said it was originally obtained from the Indians of Parahuari, and Parahuari, they further said, was a mountainous country west of the Orinoco. Every man and woman in that place, they assured me, had such a necklace. This report inflamed my mind to such a degree that I could not rest by night or day for dreaming golden dreams, and considering how to get to that rich district, unknown to civilized men. The Indians gravely shook their heads when I tried to persuade them to take me. They were far enough from the Orinoco, and Parahuari was ten perhaps fifteen days' journey further on, a country unknown to them, where they had no relations. In spite of difficulties and delays, however, and not without pain and some perilous adventures, I succeeded at last in reaching the upper Orinoco, and eventually in crossing to the other side. With my life in my hand I struggled on westward through an unknown difficult country, from Indian village to village, where at any moment I might have been murdered with impunity for the sake of my few belongings. It is hard for me to speak a good word for the Guiana savages, but I must now say this of them, that they not only did me no harm when I was at their mercy during this long journey, but they gave me shelter in their villages, and fed me when I was hungry, and helped me on my way when I could make no return. You must not, however, run away with the idea that there is any sweetness in their disposition, any humane or benevolent instincts such as are found among the civilized nations, far from it. I regard them now, and fortunately for me, I regarded them then, when, as I have said, I was at their mercy, as beasts of prey, plus a cunning or low kind of intelligence vastly greater than that of the brute, and for only morality, that respect for the rights of other members of the same family or tribe, without which even the rudest communities cannot hold together. How, then, could I do this thing, and dwell and travel freely, without receiving harm among tribes that have no peace with, and no kindly feelings towards the stranger, in a district where the white man is rarely or never seen? Because I knew them so well. Without that knowledge always available, and an extreme facility in acquiring new dialects, which had increased by practice until it was almost like intuition, I should have fared badly after leaving the Makuratari tribe. As it was, I had two or three very narrow escapes. To return from this digression, I looked at last on the famous Parahawari mountains, which, I was greatly surprised to find, were after all nothing but hills, and not very high ones. This, however, did not impress me. The very fact that Parahawari possessed no imposing feature in its scenery seemed rather to prove that it must be rich in gold. How else could its name and the fame of its treasures be familiar to people dwelling so far away as that Kunakumana? But there was no gold. I searched through the whole range, which was about seven leagues long, and visited the villages where I talked much with the Indians, interrogating them, and they had no necklets of gold, nor gold in any form, nor had they ever heard of its presence in Parahawari or in any other place known to them. The very last village where I spoke on the subject of my quest, albeit now without hope, was about a league from the western extremity of the range, in the midst of a high-broken country of forest and savanna, and many swift streams, near one of these called the Kurake, the village stood, among low-scattered trees, a large building in which all the people, numbering eighteen, passed most of their time when not hunting, with two smaller buildings attached to it. The head or chief, Rune, by name, was about fifty years old, a taciturn, finely formed, and somewhat dignified savage, who was either of a sullen disposition or not well pleased at the intrusion of a white man. And for a time I made no attempt to conciliate him. What profit was there in it at all? Even that light mask, which I had worn so long and with such good effect, incommodated me now. I would cast it aside and be myself, silent and sullen as my barbarous host. If any malignant purpose was taking form in his mind, let it, and let him do his worst. For when failure first stares a man in the face, it is so dark and repellent a look that not anything that can be added can make him more miserable, nor has he any apprehension. For weeks I have been searching with eager, feverish eyes in every village, in every rocky crevice, in every noisy mountain-streamlet, for the glittering yellow dust I had travelled so far to find. And now all my beautiful dreams, all the pleasure and power to be, had vanished like a mere mirage on the savannah at noon. It was a day of despair which I spent in this place, sitting all day indoors, for it was raining hard, immersed in my own gloomy thoughts, pretending to doze in my seat, and out of the narrow slits of my half-closed eyes, seeing the others, also sitting or moving about, like shadows or people in a dream, and I cared nothing about them, and wished not to seem friendly, even for the sake of the food they might offer. They offered me by and by. Towards evening the rain ceased, and rising up I went out a short distance to the neighbouring stream, where I sat on a stone and, casting off my sandals, loved my bruised feet in the cool running water. The western half of the sky was blue again with that tender lucid blue seen after rain, but the leaves still glittered with water, and the wet trunks looked almost black under the green foliage. The rare loveliness of the scene touched and lightened my heart. Away back in the east the hills of Parahuari, with a level sun full on them, loomed with the strange glory against the grey-raining clouds drawing off on that side, and their new mystic beauty almost made me forget how these same hills had wearied and hurt and mocked me. On that side, also to the north and south, there was open forest, but to the west a different prospect met the eye. Beyond the stream and the strip of verdure that infringed it, and the few scattered dwarf trees growing near its banks, spread a brown savanna sloping upwards to a long low rocky ridge, beyond which rose a great solitary hill, or rather mountain, conical in form, and clothed in forest almost to the summit. This was the mountain Etiowa, the chief landmark in that district. As the sun went down over the ridge, beyond the savanna, the whole western sky changed to a delicate rose-color that had the appearance of rose-colored smoke blown there by some far-off wind, and left suspended, a thin, brilliant veil showing through it, the distant sky beyond, blue and ethereal. Mix of birds, a kind of trupial, were flying past me overhead, flock succeeding flock, on their way to their roosting place, uttering as they flew a clear, bell-like chirp. And there was something ethereal too in these drops of melodious sound which fell into my heart like raindrops falling into a pool to mix their fresh heavenly water with the water of earth. As I listened to the turbid tarn of my heart some sacred drops had fallen, from the passing birds, from that crimson disk which had now dropped below the horizon, the darkening hills, the rose and blue of infinite heaven, from the whole visible circle. I felt purified, and had a strange sense and apprehension of a secret innocence and spirituality in nature, oppressions of some born, incalculably distant perhaps, to which we are all moving, of a time when the heavenly rain should have washed us clean from all spot in blemish. This unexpected peace which I had found now seemed to me of infinitely greater value than that yellow metal I had missed finding with all its possibilities. My wish now was to rest for a season at this spot, so remote and lovely and peaceful, where I had experienced such unusual feelings and such a blessed disillusionment. This was the end of my second period in Guyana. The first had been filled with that dream of a book to win me fame in my country, perhaps even in Europe. The second, from the time of leaving the Quineveto Mountains, was the dream of boundless wealth, the old dream of gold in this region that has drawn so many minds since the days of Francisco Pizarro. But to remain I must propitiate Rooney, sitting silent with gloomy brows over there indoors, and he did not appear to me like one that might be one with words, however flattering. It was clear to me that the time had come to part with my one remaining valuable trinket, the tinder-box of chased silver. I returned to the house and, going in, seated myself on a log by the fire, just opposite to my grim host, who was smoking and appeared not to have moved since I left him. I made myself a cigarette, then drew out the tinder-box with its flint and steel attached to it by means of two small silver chains. His eyes brightened a little as they curiously watched my movements, and he pointed, without speaking, to the glowing coals of fire at my feet. I shook my head and, striking the steel, sent out a brilliant spray of sparks, then blew on the tinder and lit my cigarette. This done, instead of returning the box to my pocket, I passed the chain through the buttonhole of my cloak and let it dangle on my breast as an ornament. When the cigarette was smoked, I cleared my throat in the orthodox manner and fixed my eyes on Rooney, who, on his part, made a slight movement to indicate that he was ready to listen to what I had to say. My speech was long, lasting at least half an hour, delivered in a profound silence. It was chiefly occupied with an account of my wanderings in Guyana, and being little more than a catalog of names of all the places I had visited, and the tribes and chief or headmen with whom I had come in contact, I was able to speak continuously and so to hide my ignorance of a dialect which was still new to me. The Guyana'd savage judges a man for his staying powers. To stand as motionless as a bronze statue for one or two hours, watching for a bird, to sit or lie still for half a day, to endure pain, not seldom self-inflicted, without wincing, and when delivering a speech to pour it out in a copious stream, without pausing to take breath or hesitating over a word, to be able to do all this is to prove yourself a man, an equal, one to be respected and even made a friend of. What I really wished to say to him was put in a few words at the conclusion of my well-nigh meaningless oration. Everywhere I said I had been the Indian's friend, and I wished to be his friend, to live with him at Para-Hawari, even as I had lived with other chiefs and heads of villages and families, to be looked on by him, as these others had looked on me, not as a stranger or a white man, but as a friend, a brother, an Indian. I ceased speaking, and there was a slight murmurous sound in the room, as of wind-long pent-up of many lungs suddenly exhaled, while Rooney, still unmoved, emitted a low grunt. Then I rose, and detaching the silver ornament from my cloak, presented it to him. He accepted it, not very graciously, as a stranger to these people might have imagined, but I was satisfied, feeling sure that I had made a favourable impression. After a little he handed the box to the person sitting next to him, who examined it and passed it on to a third, and in this way it went round and came back once more to Rooney. Then he called for a drink. There happened to be a store of cassari in the house, probably the women have been busy for some days past in making it, little thinking that it was destined to be prematurely consumed. A large jarful was produced. Rooney politely quaffed the first cup. I followed, then the others, and the women drank also, a woman taking about one cupful to a man's three. Rooney and I, however, drank the most, for we had our positions as the two principal personages there to maintain. Tongues were loosened now, for the alcohol, small as the quantity contained in this mild liquor is, had begun to tell on our brains. I had not their puddle-shaped stomach, made to hold unlimited quantities of meat and drink, but I was determined on this most important occasion not to deserve my host's contempt, to be compared perhaps to the small bird that delicately picks up six drops of water in its bill and is satisfied. I would measure my strength against his, and if necessary, drink myself into a state of insensibility. At last I was scarcely able to stand on my legs, but even the seasoned old savage was affected by this time. In Vino Veritas, said the agents, and the principal holds good where there is no Venom but only mild Cassari. Rooney now informed me that he had once known a white man, that he was a bad man, which had caused him to say that all white men were bad, even as David, still more sweepingly, had proclaimed that all men were liars. Now he found that it was not so, that I was a good man. His friendliness increased with intoxication. He presented me with a curious little tinder-box, made from the conical tail of an armadillo, hollowed out, and provided with a wooden stopper. This to be used in place of the box I had deprived myself of. He also furnished me with a grass hammock, and had it hung up there and then, so that I could lie down when inclined. There was nothing he would not do for me. And at last, when many more cups had been emptied, and a third or fourth jar brought out, he began to unburden his heart of its dark and dangerous secrets. He shed tears, for the man without at ear dwells not in the woods of Guyana, tears for those who have been treacherously slain long years before, for his father, who had been killed by Tripica, the father of Managa. Who was still above ground. But let him and all his people beware of Runi. He had spilt their blood before, he had fed the fox and vulture with their flesh, and would never rest while Managa lived with his people at Urite, the five hills of Urite, which were two days' journey from Para-Hawari. While thus talking of his old enemy, he lashed himself into a kind of frenzy, smiting his chest and gnashing his teeth, and finally seizing a spear, he buried its point deep into the clay floor, only to wrench it out and strike it into the earth again and again, to show how he would serve Managa, and any one of Managa's people he might meet with, man, woman, or child. Then he staggered out from the door to flourish his spear, and looking to the north-west, he shouted aloud to Managa to come and slay his people and burn down his house, as he had so often threatened to do. Let him come, let Managa come. I cried, staggering out after him. I am your friend, your brother. I have no spear and no arrows, but I have this, this. And here I drew out and flourished my revolver. Where is Managa? I continued. Where are the hills of Urite? He pointed to a star low down in the southwest. Then I shouted, At this bullet-fine Managa, sitting by the fire among his people, and let him fall and pour out his blood on the ground. And with that I discharged my pistol in the direction he had pointed to. A scream of terror burst out from the women and children, while Rooney at my side, in an excess of fierce delight and admiration, turned and embraced me. It was the first and last embraced. I ever suffered from a naked male savage, and although this did not seem a time for fastidious feelings, to be hugged to his sweltering body was an unpleasant experience. More cups of Kasari followed this outburst, and at last, unable to keep it up any longer, I staggered to my hammock, but being unable to get into it, Rooney, overflowing with kindness, came to my assistance, whereupon we fell and rolled together on the floor. Finally I was raised by the others, and tumbled into my swinging-bed, and fell at once into a deep, dreamless sleep, from which I did not awake until after sunrise on the following morning. Green Mansions by W. H. Hudson Will they can only satisfy their lord's love of a big drink at long intervals. Such a function as that at which I had assisted is therefore the result of much patient mastication and silent fermentation, the delicate flower of a plant that has been a long time growing. Having now established myself as one of the family, at the cost of some disagreeable sensations, in a pang or two of self-disgust, I resolved to let nothing further trouble me at Perahurari, but to live the easy, careless life of the idle man, joining in hunting and fishing expeditions when in the mood, at other times enjoying existence in my own way, apart from my fellows, conversing with wild nature in that solitary place. Besides Rune, there were, in our little community, two oldish men, his cousins, I believe, who had wives and grown-up children. Another family consisted of Piake, Rune's nephew, his brother Kuako, about whom there will be much to say, and his sister, Uelava. Piake had a wife and two children. Kuako was unmarried, and about nineteen or twenty years old. Uelava was the youngest of the three. Last of all, who should perhaps have been first, was Rune's mother, called Klakla, probably an imitation of the cry of some bird, for in these latitudes a person is rarely, perhaps never, called by his or her real name, which is a secret, jealously preserved, even from near relations. I believe that Klakla herself was the only living being who knew the name her parents had bestowed on her at birth. She was a very old woman, spare and figure, brown as old sun-baked leather, her face written over with innumerable wrinkles, and her long coarse hair perfectly white. Yet she was exceedingly active, and seemed to do more work than any other woman in the community. More than that, when the day's toil was over and nothing remained for the others to do, then Klakla's night-work would begin, and this was to talk all the others, or at all events, all the men, to sleep. She was like a self-regulating machine, and punctually every evening, when the door was closed, and the night-fire made up, and every man in his hammock, she would set herself going, telling the most interminable stories, until the last listener was fast asleep. Later in the night, if any man woke with a snort or grunt, off she would go again, taking up the thread of the tail where she had dropped it. Old Klakla amused me very much, by night and day, and I seldom tired of watching her owish countenance as she sat by the fire, never allowing it to sink low for want of fuel, always studying the pot when it was on to simmer, and at the same time attending to the movements of the others about her, ready at a moment's notice to give assistance, or to dart out on a stray chicken or refractory child. So much did she amuse me, although without attending it, that I thought it would be only fair in my turn to do something for her entertainment. I was engaged one day in shaping a wooden foil with my knife, whistling and singing snatches of old melodies at my work, when all at once I caught sight of the ancient dame looking greatly delighted, chuckling internally, nodding her head, and keeping time with her hands. Evidently she was able to appreciate a style of music superior to that of the aboriginals, and forthwith I abandoned my foils for the time, and set about the manufacture of a guitar, which cost me much labour, and brought out more ingenuity than I had ever thought myself capable of. To reduce the wood to the right thinness, then to bend and fasten it with wooden pegs and with gums, to add the arm, frets, keys, and finally the cat-gut strings, those of another kind being out of the question, kept me busy for some days. When completed it was a rude instrument, scarcely tunable. Nevertheless when I smote the strings, playing lively music, or accompanying myself in singing, I found that it was a great success, and so was as much pleased with my own performance as if I had had the most perfect guitar ever made in old Spain. I also skipped about the floor, strum-strumbing at the same time, instructing them in the most lively dances of the whites, in which the feet must be as nimble as the player's fingers. It is true that these exhibitions were always witnessed by the adults with the profound gravity which would have disheartened a stranger it to their ways. They were a set of hollow bronze statues that looked at me, but I knew that the living animals inside of them were tickled at my singing, strumming, and pirouetting. Kla-kla was, however, an exception, and encouraged me not infrequently by emitting a sound half-cackle and half-screech by way of laughter, for she had come to her second childhood, or, at all events, had dropped the stolid mask which the young Gehana savage, in imitation of his elders, had just to his face at about the age of twelve, to wear it thereafter all his life long, or only to drop it occasionally when very drunk. The youngsters also openly manifested their pleasure, although as a rule they tried to restrain their feelings in the presence of grown-up people, and with them I became a great favorite. By and by I returned to my foil-making, and gave them fencing lessons, and sometimes invited two or three of the biggest boys to attack me simultaneously, just to show how easily I could disarm and kill them. This practice excited some interest in Kuako, who had a little more of curiosity and geniality, and less of the put-on dignity of the others, and with him I became most intimate. Fencing with Kuako was highly amusing. No sooner was he in position, foil in hand, that all my instructions were thrown to the winds, and he would charge and attack me in his own barbarous manner, with the result that I would send his foil spinning a dozen yards away, while he, struck motionless, would gaze after it in open-mouthed astonishment. Three weeks had passed by, not unpleasantly, when one morning I took it into my head to walk by myself across that somewhat sterile savanna west of the village in stream, which ended, as I have said, in a long, low, stony ridge. From the village there was nothing to attract the eye in that direction, but I wished to get a better view of that great solitary hill or mountain of Itaewa, and the cloud-like summits beyond it in the distance. From the stream the ground rose in a gradual slope, and the highest part of the ridge for which I made was about two miles from the starting point, a parched, brown plain, with nothing growing on it but scattered tussocks of sear, hair-like grass. When I reached the top and could see the country beyond, I was agreeably disappointed at the discovery that the sterile ground extended only about a mile and a quarter on the further side, and was succeeded by a forest, a very inviting patch of woodland covering five or six square miles, occupying a kind of oblong basin, extending from the foot of Itaewa on the north to a low range of rocky hills on the south. From the wooded base and long narrow strips of forest ran out in various directions like the arms of an octopus, one pair embracing the slopes of Itaewa, another much broader belt extending along a valley which cut through the ridge of hills on the south side at right angles, and was lost to sight beyond. Far away in the west and south and north distant mountains appeared, not in regular ranges, but in groups or singly, or looking like blue-banked-up clouds on the horizon. Glad at having discovered the existence of this forest, so near home, and wondering why my Indian friends had never taken me to it, nor ever went out on that side, I set forth with a light heart to explore it for myself, regretting only that I was without a proper weapon for a procuring game. The walk from the ridge over the savanna was easy, as the barren, stony ground sloped downwards the whole way. The outer part of the wood on my side was very open, composed in most part of dwarf trees that grow on stony soil, and scattered thorny bushes bearing a yellow pea-shaped blossom. Presently I came to thicker wood, where the trees were much taller and in greater variety, and after this came another sterile strip, like that on the edge of the wood, where stone cropped out from the ground and nothing grew except the yellow flowered thorn bushes. Passing this sterile ribbon, which seemed to extend to a considerable distance north and south, and was fifty to a hundred yards wide, the forest again became dense and the trees large, with much undergrowth in places obstructing the view and making progress difficult. I spent several hours in this wild paradise, which was so much more delightful than the extensive gloomier forests I had often penetrated in Guyana, for here, if the trees did not attain to such majestic proportions, the variety of vegetable forms was even greater. As far as I went it was nowhere dark under the trees, and the number of lovely parasites everywhere illustrated the kindly influence of light and air. Even where the trees were largest, the sunshine penetrated, subdued by the foliage to exquisite greenish golden tints, filling the wide lower spaces with tender half-lights and faint blue and gray shadows. Lying on my back and gazing up, I felt reluctant to rise and renew my ramble. For what a roof was that above my head! Roof, I call it, just as the poets in their poverty sometimes describe the infinite ethereal sky by that word, but it was no more roof-like and hindering to the soaring spirit than the higher clouds that float in changing forms and tints, and like the foliage chasing the intolerable noonday beams. How far above me seemed that leafy cloudland into which I gazed? Nature, we know, first taught the architect to produce by long colonnades the illusion of distance, but the light excluding roof prevents him from getting the same effect above. Here Nature is unapproachable with her green airy canopy, a sun impregnated cloud, cloud above cloud, and though the highest may be unreached by the eye, the beams yet filter through, illumining the wide spaces beneath, chamber succeeded by chamber, each with its own special lights and shadows. Far above me, but not nearly so far as it seemed, the tender gloom of one such chamber or space is traversed now by a golden shaft of light falling through some break in the upper foliage, giving a strange glory to everything it touches, projecting leaves and beard-like tuft of moss and sneaky bush-rope. And in the most open part of that most open space, suspended on nothing to the eye, the shaft reveals a tangle of shining silver threads, the web of some large tree-spider. These seemingly distant yet distinctly visible threads serve to remind me that the human artist is only able to get his horizontal distance by a monotonous reduplication of pillar and arch, placed at regular intervals, and that the least departure from this order would destroy the effect. But nature produces her effects at random, and seems only to increase the beautiful illusion by that infinite variety of decoration in which she revels, binding tree to tree in a tangle of anaconda-like lianas, and dwindling down from these huge cables to airy webs and hair-like fibers that vibrate to the wind of the passing insect's wing. Thus in idleness, with such thoughts for company, I spent my time, glad that no human being, savaged or civilized, was with me. It was better to be alone to listen to the monkeys that chattered without offending, to watch them occupy with the unserious business of their lives. With that luxuriant tropical nature, its green clouds and elusive aerial spaces full of mystery, they harmonized well in language, appearance, and motions, mountain-to-bank angels living their fantastic lives far above earth in a half-way heaven of their own. I saw more monkeys on that morning than I usually saw in the course of a week's rambling. Another animals were seen. I particularly remember too a curry as I startled, that after rushing away a few yards, stopped and stood peering back at me, as if not knowing whether to regard me as friend or enemy. Birds, too, were strangely abundant, and altogether this struck me as being the richest hunting ground I had seen, and it astonished me to think that the Indians of the village did not appear to visit it. On my return in the afternoon I gave an enthusiastic account of my day's ramble, speaking not of the things that had moved my soul, but only of those which moved the Guyana Indian's soul, the animal food he craves, and which one would imagine nature would prefer him to do without. So hard he finds it to rest a sufficiency from her. To my surprise they shook their heads and looked troubled at what I said, and finally my host informed me that the wood I had been in was a dangerous place, that if they went there to hunt a great injury would be done to them, and he finished by advising me not to visit it again. I began to understand from their looks and the old man's vague words that their fear of the wood was superstitious. If dangerous creatures had existed there, tigers or commodities or solitary murderous savages they would have said so, but when I pressed them with questions they could only repeat that something bad existed in the place. The animals were abundant there because no Indian who valued his life dared venture into it. I replied that unless they gave me some more definite information I should certainly go again and put myself in the way of the danger they feared. My reckless courage as they considered it surprised them, but they had already begun to find out that their superstitions had no effect on me, that I listened to them as to stories invented to amuse a child, and for the moment they made no further attempt to dissuade me. Next day I returned to the forest of Evil Report, which had now a new and even greater charm, the fascination of the unknown and the mysterious. Still, the warning I had received made me distrustful and cautious at first, for I could not help thinking about it. When we consider how much of their life is passed in the woods, which become as familiar to them as the streets of our native town to us, it seems almost incredible that these savages have a superstitious fear of all forests, fearing them as much, even in the bright light of day, as a nervous child with memory filled with ghost stories fears a dark room. But, like the child in the dark room, they fear the forest only when alone in it, and for this reason always haunting couples or parties. What then prevented them from visiting this particular wood, which offered so tempting a harvest? The question troubled me not a little. At the same time I was ashamed of the feeling, and fought against it, and in the end I made my way to the same sequestered spot where I had rested so long on my previous visit. In this place I witnessed a new thing and had a strange experience. Sitting on the ground in the shade of a large tree, I began to hear a confused noise as of a coming tempest of wind mixed with shrill calls and cries. Nearer and nearer it came, and at last a multitude of birds of many kinds, but mostly small, appeared in sight swarming through the trees, some running on the trunks and larger branches, others flitting through the foliage, and many keeping on the wing, now hovering and now darting this way or that. They were all busily searching for and pursuing the insects, moving on at the same time, and in a very few minutes they had finished examining the trees near me and were gone, but not satisfied with what I had witnessed, I jumped up and rushed after the flock to keep it in sight. All my caution and all recollection of what the Indians had said was now forgot, so great was my interest in this bird army, but as they moved on without pause they quickly left me behind, and presently my career was stopped by an impenetrable tangle of bushes, vines, and roots of large trees extending like huge cables along the ground. In the midst of this leafy labyrinth I sat down on a projecting root to cool my blood before attempting to make my way back to my former position. After that tempest of motion and confused noises, the silence of the forest seemed very profound, but before I had been resting many moments it was broken by a low strain of exquisite bird melody, wonderfully pure and expressive, unlike any musical sound I had ever heard before. It seemed to issue from a thick cluster of broad leaves of a creeper only a few yards from where I sat. With my eyes fixed on this green hiding-place I waited with suspended breath for its repetition, wondering whether any civilized being had ever listened to such a strain before. Surely not, I thought, else the fame of so divine a melody would long ago have been noise to broad. I thought of the Rialijo, the celebrated organ-bird or flute-bird, and of the various ways in which the hearers are affected by it. To some its warbling is like the sound of a beautiful mysterious instrument, while to others it seems like the singing of a blithe-hearted child with a highly melodious voice. I had often heard and listened with delight to the singing of the Rialijo in the Guiana forests, but this song, or musical phrase, was utterly unlike it in character. It was pure, more expressive, softer, so low that at a distance of forty yards I could hardly have heard it. But its greatest charm was its resemblance to the human voice, a voice purified and brightened to something almost angelic. Imagine, then, my impatience as I sat there straining my sense, my deep disappointment when it was not repeated. I rose at length very reluctantly and slowly began making my way back, but when I had progressed about thirty yards, again the sweet voice sounded just behind me, and turning quickly I stood still and waited. The same voice, but not the same song, not the same phrase. The notes were different, more varied and rapidly enunciated, as if the singer had become more excited. The blood rushed to my heart as I listened. My nerves tingled with a strange new delight the rapture produced by such music heightened by a sense of mystery. Before many moments I heard it again, not rapid now, but a soft warbling, lower than at first, infinitely sweet and tender, sinking to lisping sounds that soon ceased to be audible, the whole having lasted as long as it would take me to repeat a sentence of a dozen words. This seemed the singer's farewell to me, for I waited and listened in vain to hear it repeated, and after getting back to the starting point I sat for upwards of an hour, still hoping to hear it once more. The weltering sun at length compelled me to quit the wood, but not before I had resolved to return the next morning and seek for the spot where I had met with so enchanting an experience. After crossing the sterile belt I have mentioned within the wood, and just before I came to the open outer edge where the stunted trees and bushes die away on the border of the savannah, what was my delight and astonishment at hearing the mysterious melody once more? It seemed to issue from a clump of bushes close by, but by this time I had come to the conclusion that there was a ventriloquism in this woodland voice which made it impossible for me to determine its exact direction. Of one thing I was, however, now quite convinced, and that was that the singer had been following me all the time. Again and again as I stood there listening it sounded, now so faint and apparently far off as to be scarcely audible, that all it wants would ring out bright and clear within a few yards of me as if the shy little thing had suddenly grown bold, but far or near the vocalist remained invisible, and at length the tantalizing melody ceased altogether. I was not disappointed on my next visit to the forest, nor on several succeeding visits, and this seemed to show that if I was right in believing that these strange melodious utterances preceded from one individual, then the bird, or being, though still refusing to show itself, was always on the water. I was not disappointed on my next visit to the forest, nor on several succeeding visits, and this seemed to show that if I was right in believing that these strange melodious utterances preceded from one individual, then the bird, or being, though still refusing to show itself, was always on the watch for my appearance and followed me wherever I went. This thought only served to increase my curiosity. I was constantly pondering over the subject, and at last concluded that it would be best to induce one of the Indians to go with me to the wood, on the chance of his being able to explain the mystery. One of the treasures I had managed to preserve in my sojourn with these children of nature, who were always anxious to become possessors of my belongings, was a small, prettily fashioned metal matchbox, opening with a spring. Remembering that Kuako, among others, had looked at this trifle with covetous eyes, the covetous way in which they all looked at it had given it a fictitious value in my own, I tried to bribe him with the offer of it to accompany me to my favorite haunt. The brave young hunter refused again and again, but on each occasion he offered to perform some other service or to give me something in exchange for the box. At last I told him that I would give it to the first person who should accompany me, and fearing that someone would be found valiant enough to win the prize, he at length plucked up a spirit, and on the next day, seeing me going out for a walk, he all at once offered to go with me. He cunningly tried to get the box before starting, his cunning poor youth was not very deep. I told him that the forest we were about to visit abounded with plants and birds, unlike any I had seen elsewhere, that I wished to learn their names and everything about them, and that when I had got the required information the box would be his, not sooner. Finally we started. He, as usual, armed with his Zapatana, with which I imagined he would procure more game than usually fell to his little poisoned arrows. When we reached the wood I could see that he was ill at ease. Nothing would persuade him to go into the deeper parts, and even when it was very open and light he was constantly gazing into bushes and shadowy places, as if expecting to see some frightful creature lying in wait for him. This behaviour might have had a disquieting effect on me, had I not been thoroughly convinced that his fears were purely superstitious, and that there could be no dangerous animal in a spot I was accustomed to walk in every day. My plan was to ramble about with an unconcerned air, occasionally pointing out an uncommon tree, or shrub, or vine, or calling his attention to a distant bird cry and asking the bird's name, in the hope that the mysterious voice would make itself heard, and that he would be able to give me some explanation of it. But for upwards of two hours we moved about, hearing nothing except the usual bird voices, and during all that time he never stirred a yard from my side, nor made an attempt to capture anything. At length we sat down under a tree, in an open spot close to the border of the wood. He sat down very reluctantly, and seemed more troubled in his mind than ever, keeping his eyes continually roving about, while he listened intently to every sound. The sounds were not few, owing to the abundance of animal and especially of bird life in this favoured spot. I began to question my companion as to some of the cries we heard. There were notes and cries familiar to me as the crowing of the cock, parrot screams and yelping of toucans, the distant wailing calls of Mayim and Durakwara, and shrill laughter-like notes of the large tree climber as it passed from tree to tree. The quick whistle of cotingas, and strange throbbing and thrilling sounds as of pygmies beating on metallic drums, of the skulking pitothrushes, and with these mingled other notes less well known. One came from the treetops, where it was perpetually wandering amid the foliage a low note, repeated at intervals of a few seconds, so thin and mournful and full of mystery that I half expected to hear that it proceeded from the restless ghost of some dead bird. But no, he only said it was uttered by a little bird, too little presumably to have a name. From the foliage of a neighbouring tree came a few tinkling chirps, as of a small mandolin, two or three strings of which had been carelessly struck by the player. He said that it came from the small green frog that lived in trees, and in this way my rude Indian, vexed perhaps at being asked such trivial questions, brushed away the pretty fantasies my mind had woven in the woodland solitude. For I often listened to this tinkling music, and it had suggested the idea that the place was frequented by a tribe of fairy-like troubadour monkeys, and that if I could only be quick-sighted enough I might one day be able to detect the minstrel sitting in a green tunic perhaps, cross-legged on some high-swaying bow, carelessly touching his mandolin, suspended from his neck by a yellow ribbon. By and by a bird came with low swift flight, its great tail spread open fan-wise, and perched itself on an exposed bow not thirty yards from us. It was all of a chestnut red colour, long-bodied, in size like a big pigeon. Its action showed that its curiosity had been greatly excited, for it jerked from side to side, eyeing us first with one eye, then the other, while its long tail rose and fell in a measured way. Look, cuckoo! I said in a whisper, There is a bird for you to kill! But he only shook his head, still watchful. Give me the blowpipe, then! I said, with a laugh, putting out my hand to take it. But he refused to let me take it knowing that it would only be an arrow wasted if I attempted to shoot anything. As I persisted in telling him to kill the bird, he at last bent his lips near me and said in a half whisper, as if fearful of being overheard, I can kill nothing here. If I shot at the bird, the daughter of the deedee would catch the dart in her hand and throw it back and hit me here, touching his breast just over his heart. I laughed again, saying to myself, with some amusement, that Cuckoo was not such a bad companion after all, that he was not without imagination. But in spite of my laughter, his words roused my interest and suggested the idea that the voice I was curious about had been heard by the Indians and was as great a mystery to them as to me. Since not being like that of any creature known to them, it would be attributed by their superstitious minds to one of the numerous demons or semi-human monsters inhabiting every forest, stream, and mountain, and fear of it would drive them from the wood. In this case, judging from my companion's words, they had varied the form of the superstition somewhat, inventing a daughter of a water spirit to be afraid of. My thought was that if their keen practice eyes had never been able to see this flitting woodland creature with a musical soul, it was not likely that I would succeed in my quest. I began to question him, but he now appeared less inclined to talk and more frightened than ever, and each time I attempted to speak he imposed silence with a quick gesture of alarm, while he continued to stare about him with dilated eyes. All at once he sprang to his feet as if overcome with terror and started running at full speed. His fear infected me, and springing up I followed as fast as I could, but he was far ahead of me, running for dear life, and before I had gone forty yards my feet were caught in a creeper trailing along the surface and I measured my length on the ground. The sudden violent shock almost took away my senses for a moment, but when I jumped up and stared round to see no unspeakable monster, Kurupita or other, rushing on to slay and devour me there and then I began to feel ashamed of my cowardice, and in the end I turned and walked back to the spot I had just quitted and sat down once more. I even tried to homotune, just to prove to myself that I had completely recovered from the panic caught from the miserable Indian, but it is never possible in such cases to get back one's serenity immediately, and a vague suspicion continued to trouble me for a time. After sitting there for half an hour or so, listening to distant bird sounds, I began to recover my old confidence and even to feel inclined to penetrate further into the wood. All at once, making me almost jump so sudden it was, so much nearer and louder than I had ever heard it before, the mysterious melody began. Unmistakably it was uttered by the same being heard on former occasions, but today it was different in character. The utterance was far more rapid, with fewer silent intervals, and it had none of the usual tenderness in it, nor ever once sunk to that low whisper-like talking, which it seemed to me as if the spirit of the wind had breathed its low size in syllables and speech. Now it was not only loud, rapid, and continuous, but while still musical there was an incisiveness in it, a sharp ring as of resentment which made it strike painfully on the sense. The impression of an intelligent, unhuman being addressing me in anger took so firm a hold on my mind that the old fear returned, and rising I began to walk rapidly away, intending to escape from the wood. The voice continued violently berating me, as it seemed to my mind, moving with me, which caused me to accelerate my steps, and very soon I would have broken into a run when its character began to change again. There are pauses now, intervals of silence, long or short, and after each one the voice came to my ear with a more subdued and dulcet sound, more of that melting, flute-like quality it had possessed at other times, and this softness of tone, coupled with the talking-like form of utterance, gave me the idea of a being no longer incensed, addressing me now in a peaceable spirit, reasoning away my unworthy tremors, and imploring me to remain with it in the wood. Strange as this voice without a body was, and always productive of a slightly uncomfortable feeling on account of its mystery, it seemed impossible to doubt that it came to me now in a spirit of pure friendliness, and when I had recovered my composure I found a new delight in listening to it, all the greater because of the fear so lately experienced, and of its seeming intelligence. For the third time I receded myself on the same spot, and at intervals the voice talked to me there for some time, and to my fancy expressed satisfaction and pleasure at my presence, but later, without losing its friendly tone, it changed again. It seemed to move away and to be thrown back from a considerable distance, and at long intervals it would approach me again with a new sound, which I began to interpret as of command, or in treaty. Was it, I asked myself, inviting me to follow? And if I obeyed, to what delightful discoveries or frightful dangers might it lead? My curiosity together with the belief that the being—I called it being, not bird now—was friendly to me, overcame all timidity, and I rose and walked at random towards the interior of the wood. Very soon I had no doubt left that the being had desired me to follow. There was now a new note of gladness in its voice, and it continued near me as I walked, at intervals approaching me so closely, as it set me staring into the surrounding shadowy places, like poor scared kuako. On this occasion too I began to have a new fancy, for fancy or illusion I was determined to regard it, that some swift-footed being was treading the ground near me, that I occasionally caught the faint rustle of a light-foot step, and detected emotion in leaves and fronds and thread-like stems of creepers hanging near the surface, as if some passing body had touched and made them tremble. And once or twice that I even had a glimpse of a gray, misty object moving at no great distance in the deeper shadows. Led by this wandering, tricksy being, I came to a spot where the trees were very large, and the damp, dark ground almost free from undergrowth. And here the voice ceased to be heard. After patiently waiting and listening for some time, I began to look about me with a slight feeling of apprehension. It was still about two hours before sunset, only in this place the shade of the vast trees made a perpetual twilight. Moreover it was strangely silent here. The few burg-cries that reached me coming from a long distance. I had flattered myself that the voice had become to some extent intelligible to me. Its outburst of anger caused no doubt by my cowardly flight after the Indian. Then its recovered friendliness, which had induced me to return, and finally its desire to be followed. Now that it had led me to this place of shadow in profound silence, and had ceased to speak and to lead, I could not help thinking that this was my goal, that I had been brought to this spot with a purpose, that in this wild and solitary retreat some tremendous adventure was about to befall me. As the silence continued unbroken, there was time to dwell on this thought. I gazed before me and gazed intently, scarcely breathing, until the suspense became painful, too painful at last, and I turned and took a step with the idea of going back to the border of the wood. When close by, clear as a silver bell, sounded the voice once more, but only for a moment, two or three syllables in response to my movement, then it was silent again. Once more I was standing still, as if in obedience to a command, in the same state of suspense, and whether the change was real or only imagined I know not, but the silence every minute grew more profound and the gloom deeper. Imaginary terrors began to assail me. Ancient fables of men allured by beautiful forms and melodious voices to destruction all at once acquired a fearful significance. I recalled some of the Indian beliefs, especially that of the misshapen, man-devouring monster who is said to beguile his victims into the dark forest by mimicking the human voice, the voice sometimes of a woman in distress, or by singing some strange and beautiful melody. I grew almost afraid to look round lest I should catch sight of him, stealing towards me on his huge feet, with toes pointing backwards, his mouth snarling horribly to display his great green fangs. It was distressing to have such fancies in this wild, solitary spot, hateful to feel their power over me when I knew that they were nothing but fancies and creations of the savage mind. But if these supernatural beings had no existence, there were other monsters only too real in these woods, which it would be dreadful to encounter alone and unarmed, since against such adversaries a revolver would be as ineffectual as a pop-gun. Some huge camoody, able to crush my bones like brittle twigs in its constricting coils, might lurk in these shadows, and approach me stealthily, unseen in its dark color on the dark ground. Or some jaguar or black tiger might steal towards me, masked by a bush or treachock, to spring upon me unawares. Or worse still, this way might suddenly come a pack of those swift-footed, unspeakably terrible, hunting leopards, from which every living thing in the forest flies with shrieks of consternation, or else falls paralyzed in their path to be instantly torn to pieces and devoured. A slight rustling sound in the foliage above me made me start and cast up my eyes. High up, where a pale gleam of tempered sunlight fell through the leaves, a grotesque human-like face, black as ebony and adorned with a great red beard, appeared staring down upon me. In another moment it was gone. It was only a large arigato, or howling monkey, but I was so unnerved that I could not get rid of the idea that it was something more than a monkey. Once more I moved, and again, the instant I moved my foot, clear and keen and imperative, sounded the voice. It was no longer possible to doubt its meaning. It commanded me to stand still, to wait, to watch, to listen. Had it cried, listened, do not move. I could not have understood it better. Trying as the suspense was, I now felt powerless to escape. Something very terrible, I felt convinced, was about to happen, either to destroy or to release me from the spell that held me. And while I stood thus rooted to the ground, the sweat standing in large drops on my forehead, all at once, close to me, sounded a cry, fine and clear at first, and rising at the end, to a shriek so loud, piercing an unearthly in character, that the blood seemed to freeze in my veins, and a despairing cry to heaven escaped my lips. Then, before that long shriek expired, a mighty chorus of thunderous voices burst forth around me, and in this awful tempest of sound I trembled like a leaf, and the leaves on the trees were agitated as if by a high wind, and the earth itself seemed to shake beneath my feet. Indescribably horrible were my sensations at that moment. I was deafened, and would possibly have been maddened, had I not, as by a miracle, chance to see a large arigato on a branch overhead, roaring with open mouth and inflated throat and chest. It was simply a concert of howling monkeys that had so terrified me. But my extreme fear was not strange in the circumstances, since everything that had led up to the display, the gloom and silence, the period of suspense, and my heated imagination, had raised my mind to the highest degree of excitement and expectancy. I had rightly conjectured, no doubt, that my unseen guide had led me to that spot for a purpose, and the purpose had been to set me in the midst of a congregation of arigatos to enable me for the first time fully to appreciate their unparalleled vocal powers. I had always heard them at a distance. Here they were gathered in scores, possibly hundreds, the whole arigato population of the forest I should think, close to me, and it may give some faint conception of the tremendous power and awful character of the sound thus produced by their combined voices, when I say that this animal, miscalled howler in English, would outroar the mightiest lion that ever woke the echoes of an African wilderness. This roaring concert which lasted three or four minutes, having ended, I lingered a few minutes longer on the spot, and not hearing the voice again went back to the edge of the wood, and then started on my way back to the village. CHAPTER IV Perhaps I was not capable of thinking quite coherently on what had just happened until I was once more fairly outside of the forest's shadows, out in that clear open daylight where things seem what they are, and imagination, like a juggler detected and laughed at, hastily takes itself out of the way. As I walked homewards I paused midway on the barren ridge to gaze back on the scene I had left, and then the recent adventure began to take a semi-ludicrous aspect in my mind. All that circumstance of preparation, that mysterious prelude to something unheard of, unimaginable, surpassing all fables ancient and modern and all tragedies, to end at last in a concert of howling monkeys. Certainly the concert was very grand, indeed one of the most astounding in nature, but still. I sat down on a stone and laughed freely. The sun was sinking behind the forest, its broad red disc still showing through the topmost leaves, and the higher part of the foliage was of a luminous green, like green flame, throwing off flakes of quivering fiery light, but lower down the trees were in profound shadow. I felt very light-hearted while I gazed on this scene for how pleasant it was just now to think of the strange experience I had passed through, to think that I had come safely out of it, that no human eye had witnessed my weakness, and that the mystery existed still to fascinate me. For ludicrous, as the De Numeau now looked, the cause of all, the voice itself, was the thing to marvel at more than ever. That it proceeded from an intelligent being I was firmly convinced, and although too materialistic in my way of thinking to admit for a moment that it was a supernatural being, I still felt that there was something more than I had at first imagined in Cuaco's speech about a daughter of the Didi. That the Indians knew a great deal about the mysterious voice, and had held it in great fear, seemed evident. But they were savages, with ways that were not mine, and however friendly they might be towards one of a superior race, there was always in their relations with him a low cunning, prompted partly by suspicion, underlying their words and actions. For the white man to put himself mentally on their level is not more impossible than for these aborigines to be perfectly open, as children are, towards the white. Whatever subject the stranger within their gates exhibits an interest in, that they will be reticent about, and their reticence, which conceals itself under easily invented lies, or an affected stupidity, invariably increases with his desire for information. It was plain to them that some very unusual interest took me to the wood. Consequently I could not expect that they would tell me anything they might know to enlighten me about the matter. And I concluded that Cuaco's words about the daughter of the Didi, and what she would do if he blew an arrow at a bird, had accidentally escaped him in a moment of excitement. Nothing, therefore, was to be gained by questioning them, or at all events, by telling them how much the subject attracted me. And I had nothing to fear. My independent investigations had made this much clear to me. The voice might proceed from a very frolic-sum and tricksy creature, full of wild fantastic humours, but nothing worse. It was friendly to me, I felt sure. At the same time it might not be friendly towards the Indians, for on that day it had made itself heard only after my companion had taken flight, and it had then seemed incensed against me, possibly because the savage had been in my company. That was the result of my reflections on the day's events, when I returned to my entertainer's roof, and sat down among my friends to refresh myself with stewed fowl and fish from the household pot, into which a hospitable woman invited me with a gesture to dip my fingers. Kuako was lying in his hammock, smoking, I think, certainly not reading. When I entered he lifted his head and stared at me, probably surprised to see me alive, unharmed and in a placid temper. I laughed at the look, and somewhat disconcerted he dropped his head down again. After a minute or two I took the metal match-box and tossed it on to his breast. He clutched it, and starting up stared at me in the utmost astonishment. He could scarcely believe his good fortune, for he had failed to carry out his part of the compact, and had resigned himself to the loss of the coveted prize. Jumping down to the floor he held up the box triumphantly, his joy overcoming the habitual stolid look, while all the others gathered about him, each trying to get the box into his own hands to admire it again, notwithstanding that they had all seen it a dozen times before. But it was Kuako's now, and not the stranger's, and therefore more nearly their own than formally, and must look different, more beautiful, with a brighter polish on the metal. And that wonderful enameled cock on the lid, figured in Paris probably, but just like a cock in Guyana, the pet bird which they no more think of killing and eating than we do our purring pussies and lemon-coloured canaries, must now look more strikingly valiant and cock-like than ever, with its crimson comb and waddles, burnished red hackles, and dark green arching tail-plumes. But Kuako, while willing enough to have it admired and praised, would not let it out of his hands, and told them pompously that it was not theirs for them to handle, but his, Kuako's, for all time, that he had won it by accompanying me, valorous man that he was, to that evil wood into which they, timid, inferior creatures that they were, would never have ventured to set foot. I'm not translating his words, but that was what he gave them to understand pretty plainly to my great amusement. After the excitement was over, Rooney, who had maintained a dignified calm, made some roundabout remarks, apparently with the object of eliciting an account of what I had seen and heard in the forest of evil fame. I replied carelessly that I had seen a great many birds and monkeys, monkeys so tame that I might have procured one if I had had a blowpipe, in spite of my never having practice shooting with that weapon. It interested them to hear about the abundance and tameness of the monkeys, although it was scarcely news, but how tame they must have been when I, of the stranger not to the man are born. Not naked, brown-skinned, link-side, and noiseless as an owl in his movements, had yet been able to look closely at them. Rooney only remarked, apropos of what I had told him, that they could not go there to hunt. Then he asked me if I feared nothing. Nothing! I replied carelessly. The things you fear hurt not the white man and are no more than this to me, saying which I took up a little white wood ash in my hand and blew it away with my breath. And against other enemies I have this, I added, touching my revolver. A brave speech, just after that Aragwato episode, but I did not make it without blushing. Mentally. He shook his head and said it was a poor weapon against some enemies. Also, true enough, that it would procure no birds and monkeys for the stu-pot. Next morning my friend Kuako, taking his sabbatana, invited me to go out with him, and I consented with some misgivings, thinking he had overcome his superstitious fears and, inflamed by my account of the abundance of game in the forest, intended going there with me. The previous day's experience had made me think that it would be better in the future to go there alone. But I was giving the poor youth more credit than he deserved. It was far from his intention to face the terrible unknown again. We went in a different direction, and tramped for hours through woods where birds were scarce and only of the smaller kinds. Then my guide surprised me a second time by offering to teach me to use the sabbatana. This, then, was to be my reward for giving him the box. I readily consented, and with the long weapon, awkward to carry, in my hand, and imitating the noiseless movements and cautious, watchful manner of my companion, I tried to imagine myself a simple Guyana savage, with no knowledge of that artificial social state to which I had been born, dependent on my skill and little role of poisoned darts for a livelihood. By an effort of the will I emptied myself of my life experience and knowledge, or as much of it as possible, and thought only of the generations of my dead imaginary progenitors who had ranged these woods back to the dim forgotten years before Columbus, and if the pleasure I had in the fancy was childish, it made the day pass quickly enough. Kuako was constantly at my elbow to assist and give advice, and many an arrow I blew from the long tube and hit no bird. Heaven knows what I hit, for the arrows flew away on their wide and wild career to be seen no more, except a few which my keen-eyed comrade marked to their destination and managed to recover. The result of our day's hunting was a couple of birds, which Kuako, not I, shot, and a small opossum his sharp eyes detected high up a tree, lying coiled up on an old nest, over the side of which the animal had unconsciously allowed his snaky tail to dangle. The number of darts I wasted must have been a rather serious loss to him, but he did not seem troubled at it and made no remark. Next day, to my surprise, he volunteered to give me a second lesson, and we went out again. On this occasion he had provided himself with a large bundle of darts, but wise man, they were not poisoned, and had therefore mattered little whether they were wasted or not. I believe that on this day I made some little progress. At all events my teacher remarked that before long I would be able to hit a bird. This made me smile and answer that if he could place me within twenty yards of a bird not smaller than a small man, I might manage to touch it with an arrow. This speech had a very unexpected and remarkable effect. He stopped short in his walk, stared at me wildly, then grinned and finally burst into a roar of laughter, which was no bad imitation of the howling monkey's performance, and smote his naked thighs with tremendous energy. At length recovering himself he asked whether a small woman was not the same as a small man, and being answered in the affirmative went off into a second extravagant roar of laughter. Thinking it was easy to tickle him while he continued in this mood, I began making any number of feeble jokes—feeble—but quite as good as the one which had provoked such outrageous merriment, for it amused me to see him acting in this unusual way. But they all failed of their effect. There was no hitting the bull's eye a second time. He would only stare vacantly at me, then grunt like a peccary—not appreciatively—and walk on. Still, at intervals he would go back to what I had said about hitting a very large bird and roar again as if this wonderful joke was not easily exhausted. Again on the third day we were out together practicing at the birds, frightening if not killing them. But before noon, finding that it was his intention to go to a distant spot where he expected to meet with larger game, I left him and returned to the village. The blowpipe practice had lost its novelty, and I did not care to go on all day and every day with it. More than that, I was anxious after so long an interval to pay a visit to my wood, as I began to call it, in the hope of hearing that mysterious melody which I had grown to—