RESIDENCE AT TARAPOTO 69 
a perfect cloud of wasps, and got horribly stung. 
When we had got away from the foot of the tree, 
and had beaten off the wasps that followed him, I 
saw that his face and his naked back and shoulders 
were covered with knobs from the stings. He 
staggered and looked wild, and was evidently in 
great pain. I took out my flask, and was about to 
pour some spirit into my hand to bathe the stings, 
when he said, " If it's all the same to you, patron, 
I'd rather have it inside." I gave him the flask, 
and he took a good pull. No doubt he preferred 
the remedy that way because he liked the taste of 
it. Anyhow, it was the right way, and he went on 
through a long hard day without a word or gesture 
of disquiet, and when we reached home declared 
himself quite well again. 
I have been stung by wasps I suppose hundreds 
of times — once very badly, having above twenty 
stings in my head and face alone. Yet I have 
always admired their beauty, ingenuity, and heroic 
ferocity ; and I have twice in my life lived on good 
terms with them for months together. At San 
Carlos I had several little colonies of the large 
brown house-wasps, which hung their nests — like 
inverted goblet-glasses — from the rafters, and out- 
side the house under the eaves. They never once 
stung me, not even when they had so multiplied as 
to become troublesome, and I poked down and 
swept out several of their nests. They seemed to 
recognise me as the real owner of the house, where 
they existed only on sufferance. But a stranger 
who should imprudently linger in the doorway 
would be sure to be attacked by them. Stedman, 
m his Expedition to Surinam^ gives an amusing 
