A WOMAN'S EXPERIENCES IN VENEZUELA. 8 1 



Hoatzins and great wandering tribes of Scarlet Ibises and 

 Plovers; Herons, much occupied with their unsocial and 

 taciturn calling as fishermen, stood silent and solitar}' in 

 secluded pools. With all this wild life the river teemed. It 

 was only with the rising and falling of the tide that man 

 entered upon the scene; and so quietly, so much a part of 



Fig. 44. The Silent Savages. 



nature, that one hardly felt any difference between him and 

 the forest folk. In a silently, swiftly moving curiara he would 

 glide under the shadows of the overhanging mangroves. 

 Sometimes the curiara would be a merchant vessel, laden 

 with oUas, fruit, etc., with its destination Maturin, many 

 miles away in the interior. Again its only occupant was a 

 fisherman, as silent as the Herons themselves. Like a Heron 



