“ A TRAMP WiTH REDSKINS.” 371 
into a€tual nausea. I was so far off that the whole scene 
was but a pantomine to me; but, on enquiry, I was 
amused to find that the cause of it was the discovery by 
one of the party, whose too enquiring mind had led him.to 
stir up the dregs of the pepper-pot, that it was made, so 
far as it was not made of capsicum, of large and fat 
grasshoppers. It was in faét a curious instance of the 
physical effeét exercised by the mind on the stomach ; for 
I still maintain—as the others maintained before the 
discovery—that the best pepper-pot ever tasted by any 
one of us was that confection of grasshoppers. 
But no such catastrophe happened at Quonga; and 
the pepper-pot was satisfa€torily washed down with 
great draughts of paiwari—the native beer. This is among 
Guiana Redmen the liquor of hospitality; and the guest 
who refuses a drink of it has small chance of recovering 
favour with his hosts. It is not very nasty to the taste— 
indeed the better made samples of it are decidedly nice— 
but it would be far nicer if one did not know how it is 
made. It consists of chewed cassava bread mixed with 
water and then allowed slightly to ferment. Yet the 
most syueamish European traveller in those parts, if he 
wishes really to mix his own life for the time with that of 
the Redmen, must forget his squeamishness and drink. 
But a special trial in this matter of paiwari hospitality 
overtook me at Quonga. I was evidently to be treated 
with the highest possible honours ; and my hosts, instead 
of offering me some of the ordinary paiwari, with which 
they were refreshing my companions, produced a tiny 
calabash—holding, it. may be, as much as a teacup—of 
| the special black paiwari, which is to the ordinary kind as 
the finest and. rarest: liquor is to every day brandy, I 
MM 2 
