240 TIMEHRI. 
now remained almost completely secluded. Among these 
savannah Redskins my three coast Redskins were hardly __ 
less strangers in a strange land than I was myself. 
For our further advance, by walking across the very 
mountainous and untraversed country which lay between a 
us and the Potaro, the great want now was of savannah 
Redmen, and Redwomen—for these are better than the 
men in this respe€ét—as porters. Rapidity in making 
arrangements for this sort of travel is quite out of 
the question. The red-skinned folk live scattered far 
and wide over the savannah, each settlement often at the 
distance of a day, or more, from the next. Messengers 
having been sent out to call the people together, there 
was nothing to be done but to wait patiently for some 
days forthe results. However, in this case, a few days’ 
rest to recover from the extraordinary weakness which 
is one of the most marked features of such fever, the 
rapidity of recovery from this being another, were both 
useful and welcome, 
In certain parts of the savannan the settlements are 
more numerous and less widely scattered ; and in such 
places there is a well understood code of signals by which 
the people may be brought together without the trouble 
and delay of sending special messengers —it is impossible 
ever to persuade one Redman to go alone—to each settle- 
ment. Once, years before, on my first journey into the 
interior, I had come late one evening to a place regu- 
larly used for such purposes, from which we were to 
begin the walking journey the next day. Before daylight — 
the next morning, | was wakened by a series of loud 
reports, as of explosions, I had only been a few months 
in the colony, and had been greedily devouring every 
