A LEGEND OF ROEZL 19 



uses roads, railways, and horses only to get him from one 

 scene of operations to another. He works afoot. 



It is good to know that Roezl had his reward. Eighteen 

 years ago he died, full of years and honours, in his native 

 Bohemia. And the Kaiser himself was represented by a 

 high dignitary at the unveiling of his statue in Prague. 



The experiences I am about to tell were made in the 

 course of that long march through the woods from La 

 Guayra in Venezuela to Ocaiia in New Granada. Among 

 the special trophies of it was Cattleya Roezlii, a variety of 

 Cattleya speciosissima ; but I am not aware that the secluded 

 tribe whose habits interested Roezl so much had any im- 

 mediate connection with this plant. Perhaps before going 

 further it may be well to note that any assertion of the 

 great Collector might be admitted not only as an honest 

 report, but also as a fact which he had verified, so far as was 

 possible. Dr. Johnson was not more careful to speak the 

 whole truth and nothing but the truth. 



It was somewhere round the sources of the Amazons 

 that Roezl sojourned for a while in a village of those 

 strange people whom the Spaniards call Pintados — ' painted ' 

 Indians. Their colour, in fact, is piebald — light brown, 

 dark brown, and a livid tint commonly described as red, 

 in blotches. They are seen occasionally in Guiana, more 

 rarely in Venezuela and Brazil. The colouring is ascribed 

 to disease, rather because it is so hideous and abnormal, 

 perhaps, than for a solid reason. Roezl thought it 

 ' natural.' 



He was making his way through those endless forests by 

 compass, with two mestizos from Columbia who had served 

 him on a former journey, and a negro boy. For guides and 

 carriers he depended on the Indians, who passed him from 

 settlement to settlement. It is fitting to observe here that 

 Roezl never carried firearms of any sort at any time — so 



