312 TiMEHRI. 



Having asked one of our companions who this Maku- 

 NAIMA was. he answered without any hesitation " Jesus 

 Christ." 



After we had crossed the Murre we took a north- 

 westerly dire6lion through an undulating savannah. Here 

 we encountered another small river about ten feet across 

 which also hastened towards the Kukenaam. A big sand- 

 stone bolder lying in the middle of the river bed was 

 already serving the foremost Indians as a crossing; 

 they jumped from one side of the river on to it 

 and then to the opposite bank, a manoeuvre which all 

 the rest imitated. I was the sixteenth in tiie line. Close 

 behind me came the young Indian woman Kate, who 

 shortly before our departure had been marrifd,and who on 

 account of her brightness, and her saucy engaging ways, 

 qualities which are very rarely m it with among the fair 

 sex of the Indians, had been permitted to follow her 

 husband. She had become ever\ body's pet. When I 

 had got to the river, some " Schultsias," which were 

 fringing the bank, attra6led my attention, and in order 

 to convince myself whether I had gathered them already 

 I stopped a minute before getting ready for my jump, 

 while Kate a little impatiently urged me on, laughing 

 and saying that I must not detain everybody else for a 

 little flower. Laughingly I took my start and jumped 

 on to the boulder. I was just going to make the second 

 jump when a heart-rending piercmg scream from Kate 

 stopped me and the Indian immediately following her, 

 AWACAIPI, jumped the whole river uttering the frightened 

 shout " Akuy, Akuy," (poisonous snake.) This hap- 

 pened the moment I turned round, for Kate was 

 standing deathly pale on the boulder beside me $nd 



