NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS 431 



never travel without an accompaniment of at least 

 four or five well-armed men, their lives being in 

 continual jeopardy from such denunciations. 



I have never been so fortunate as to see a 

 genuine paye at work. Among the civilised Indians 

 the Christian padre has supplanted the pagan paye, 

 who has besides been discountenanced and perse- 

 cuted by the civil authorities ; so that if any now 

 exist, he must exercise his office in secret. With 

 the native and still unchristianised tribes I have lor 

 the most part held only passing intercourse during 

 some of my voyages. Once I lived for seven 

 months at a time among them, on the river Uaupes, 

 but even there I failed to catch a paye. When I 

 was exploring the Jauarite cataracts on that river, 

 and was the guest of Uiaca, the venerable chief of 

 the Tucano nation, news came to the malloca one 

 afternoon that a famous paye, from a long way up 

 river, would arrive that night and remain until next 

 day, and I congratulated myself on so fine a 

 chance of getting to know some of the secrets of 

 his "medicine." He did not reach the port until 

 10 P.M., and when he learnt that there was a white 

 paye (meaning myself) in the village, he and his 

 attendants immediately threw back into the canoe 

 his goods, which they had begun to disembark, 

 and resumed their dangerous voyage down the river 

 in the night-time. I was told he had with him 

 several palm-leaf boxes, containing his apparatus. 

 (There is a similar box now in the Kew Museum, 

 sent by me from the Uaupes.) I could only regret 

 that his dread of a supposed rival had prevented 

 the interview which to me would have been full of 

 interest ; the more so as I was prepared to barter 



