SOUTH AMERICA. 197 

 communicating his intentions by writing, he has fallen Third 



Journey. 



upon a plan of communication sure and simple. When — 



^ ^ Indian me- 



two or three families have determined to come down the °^ . 



communi- 



river and pay you a visit, they send an Indian before- nation, 

 hand with a string of beads. You take one bead off every 

 day ; and on the day that the string is headless, they 

 arrive at your house. 



In finding their way throvigh these pathless wilds, the 

 sun is to them what Ariadne's clue was to Theseus. 

 When he is on the meridian, they generally sit down, and 

 rove onwards again as soon as he has sufficiently de- 

 clined to the west ; they require no other compass. 

 When in chase, they break a twig on the bushes as they 

 pass by every three or four hundred paces, and this often 

 prevents them from losing their way on their return. 



You will not be long in the forests of Guiana before 

 you perceive how very thinly they are inhabited. You 

 may wander for a week together without seeing a hut. 

 The wild beasts, the snakes, the swamps, the trees, the 

 uncurbed luxuriance of every thing around you, conspire 

 to inform you that man has no habitation here — man has 

 seldom passed this way. 



Let us now return to natural history. There was a 

 person making shingles, with twenty or thirty negroes, 

 not far from Mibiri-hill. I had offered a reward to any 

 of them who would find a good sized snake in the forest, 

 and come and let me know where it was. Often had 



