WARS BETWEEN VLLAGES. 191 
Nothing; absolutely nothing; constant changes are 
taking place. 
These people are of a treacherous disposition, and are 
constantly quarrelling among their neighbors. They are 
most barbarous in their mode of warfare, in which wom- 
en, children, and even babies are killed. Once while 
staying in a Bakalai village there were two women, who 
were quietly washing, and were killed and left there, un- 
til the people, wondering at their disappearance, looked 
for them, and found them dead. 
When war has once really broken out in the country 
there is no rest or safety. No man or woman in any 
village can take a step in any direction, day or night, 
without fear of death. They lie in ambush to surprise 
each other’s villages. If they have guns, they come on 
the sly and shoot through the bark of which their houses 
are made, and kill sleeping persons; hence no one could 
sleep for two consecutive nights at the same place. In 
passing a tree, sometimes the enemy steals in behind, and 
will spear the poor luckless man, woman, or child. They 
use every unfair means of warfare; and the meaner the 
_ attack, and the greater the treachery, the more glory they 
have won. In such times of war the fires are put out 
after dark, because they give light to the enemy, and the 
glare of the fire makes blind those near it, while those 
who come through the darkness can see well. The peo- 
ple keep a dead silence, lest their voices should betray 
their whereabouts; the hunters are loth to hunt, for fear 
of falling into an ambush of some hidden enemies; the 
women and slaves fear to plant, and therefore every body 
approaches a condition of semi-starvation. This some- 
times lasts for months. At last whole districts are de- 
