332 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



While procuring it, exposure to the rain, which fell in 

 torrents, brought on a return of inflammation in the 

 stomach, and I was obliged to have recourse again to the 

 lancet, and to use it with an unsparing hand. I wanted 

 another ball, but was not in a state the next morning to 

 proceed to the trees. A fine interesting young Indian 

 observing my eagerness to have it, tendered his services, 

 and asked me two handsful of fish-hooks for his trouble. 



Off he went, and to my great surprise returned in a 

 very short time. Bearing in mind the trouble and time 

 it had cost me to make a ball, I could account for this 

 Indian's expedition in no other way except that, being an 

 inhabitant of the forest, he knew how to go about his 

 work in a much shorter way than I did. His ball, to be 

 sure, had very little elasticity in it. I tried it repeatedly, 

 but it never rebounded a yard high. The young Indian 

 watched me with great gravity, and when I made him 

 understand that I expected the ball would dance better, 

 he called another Indian, who knew a little English, to 

 assure me that I might be quite easy on that score. The 

 young rogue, in order to render me a complete dupe, 

 brought the new moon to his aid. He gave me to under- 

 stand that the ball was like the little moon, which he 

 pointed to, and by the time it grew big and old, the ball 

 would bounce beautifullj'-. This satisfied me, and I gave 

 him the fish-hooks, which he received without the least 

 change of countenance. 



I bounced the ball repeatedly for two months after, but 

 I found that it still remained in its infancy. At last I 

 suspected that' the savage (to use a vulgar phrase) had 

 come Yorkshire over me ; and so I determined to find out 

 how he had managed to take me in. I cut the ball in 

 two, and then saw what a taught trick he had played me. 

 It seems he had chewed some leaves into a lump, the size 



