82 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



also he would station himself near a shady pool, and sit all 

 day, motionless save for the changing of bait or the pulling 

 in of a fish. With the turning of the tide the line would be 

 drawn up, the fish covered with cool green leaves and the 

 curiara would move away, the bronze figure of its owner 

 skilfully guiding it up the winding river. 



Occasionally the fisherman was accompanied by his squaw, 

 hardly to be distinguished from him, and in the bow there 

 was often the little naked figure of a child playing with a mite 

 of a tame monkey, or both sound asleep with their arms 

 wrapped about each other. All that these simple folk ask 

 of life is one fish to cat, another with which to buy cassava 

 and a yard of cotton cloth. 



In the brief tropical twilight we would hastily make prep- 

 arations for the night, spreading our air-beds on deck, 

 hanging over them a white mosquito canopy and putting our 

 electric flashlight and revolver at hand. After the first two 

 nights we had abandoned the cabin, which had added to its 

 other discomforts the fact that all the mosquitoes of the 

 cano had selected it as their abode. Never were nights 

 more beautiful than those which we spent on the deck of that 

 little sloop, and never was sleep more dreamless and peaceful. 



In the darkness of early evening, before the moon rose, we 

 would sit on deck munching sugar-cane while the Captain 

 told us many a tale of his young days, when he was the 

 prosperous owner of a schooner twice the size of the " Josef a 

 Jacinta" and when smuggling brought adventure and yellow 

 gold in abundance. He was full of legend and superstition. 

 He told us of aged men and women, both among the Indians 

 and the Spaniards, who he declared can by a peculiar whistle 

 call together all the snakes in the vicinity and then by incan- 

 tations so h3'pnotize them that they can he handled with 

 impunity. The owner of a hacienda will sometimes employ 

 one of these charmers to call together the snakes, which can 



