224 WANDERINGS IN 



Third of powder, sliot, aiid hooks, they dropped their expe- 



JOURNEY. 



ditioii, and invited ns up to the settlement they had just 



left, and where we laid in a provision of Cassava. 



Indian They gave us for dinner boiled ant-bear and red 



monkey ; two dishes unknown even at Beauvilliers in 

 Paris, or at a London city feast. The monkey was very 

 good indeed, but the ant-bear had been kept beyond its 

 time ; it stunk like our venison does in England ; and so, 

 after tasting it, I preferred dining entirely on monkey. 

 After resting here, we went back to the river. The In- - 

 dians, three in number, accompanied us in their own 

 curial, and, on entering the river, pointed to aplace a little 

 way above, well calculated to harbour a Cayman. The 

 water was deep and still, and flanked by an immense 

 sand-bank ; there was also a little shallow creek close by. 



On this sand-bank, near the forest, the people made a 

 shelter for the night. My own was already made ; for 

 I always take with me a painted sheet, about twelve feet 

 by ten. This, thrown over a pole, supported betwixt 

 two trees, makes you a capital roof with very little 

 trouble. 



We showed one of the Indians the shark-hook. He 

 shook his head and laughed at it, and said it would not 

 do. When he was a boy, he had seen his father catch 

 the Caymen, and on the morrow he would make some- 

 thing that would answer. 



In the mean time, we set the shark-hook, but it availed 



