WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 247 



a plan of comnmnication sure and simple. When two or 

 three families have determined to come down the river 

 and pay you a visit, they send an Indian beforehand with 

 a string of beads. You take one bead off every day ; and 

 on the day that the string is headless, they arrive at your 

 house. 



In finding their way through these pathless wilds, the 

 sun is to them what Ariadne's clue was to Theseus. When 

 he is on the meridian, they generally sit down, and rove 

 onwards again as soon as he has sufficiently declined to 

 the west ; they require no other compass. When in chase, 

 they break a twig on the bushes as they pass by every 

 three or four hundred paces, and this often prevents them 

 from losing their way on their return. 



You will not be long in the forests of Guiana, before 

 you perceive how very thinly they are inhabited. You 

 may wander for a week together without seeing a hut. 

 The wild beasts, snakes, the swamps, the trees, the un- 

 curbed luxuriance of everything around you, conspire to 

 inform you that man has no habitation here — man has 

 seldom passed this way. 



