234 WANDERINGS IN 



f- ne nex t d a y the negro showed us the creek 



* 



THIRD 



JOURNEY. 



- where it was. 

 Reaches a The entrance was so concealed by thick bushes 



creek and , . . , 



Indian set- that a stranger would have passed it without 

 knowing it to be a creek. In going up it we 

 found it dark, winding, and intricate beyond any 

 creek that I had ever seen before. When Orpheus 

 came back with his young wife from Styx, his 

 path must have been similar to this, for Ovid says 

 it was 



" Arduus, obliquus, caligine densus opaca," 



and this creek was exactly so. 



When we had got about two-thirds up it, we 

 met the Indians going a fishing. I saw, by the 

 way their things were packed in the curial, that 

 they did not intend to return for some days. 

 However, on telling them what we wanted, and 

 by promising handsome presents of powder, shot, 

 and hooks, they dropped their expedition, and 

 invited us up to the settlement they had just left, 

 and where we laid in a provision of cassava. 

 Indian They gave us for dinner boiled ant-bear and 



dinner. 



red monkey ; two dishes unknown even at Beau- 

 villiers in Paris, or at a London city feast. The 

 monkey was very good indeed, but the ant-bear 

 had been kept beyond its time ; it stunk as our 

 venison does in England ; and so, after tasting it, 

 I preferred dining entirely on monkey. After 

 resting here, we went back to the river. The 

 Indians, three in number, accompanied us in their 



