444 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
master had a caseira (or housekeeper) — a woman by no means 
young — whom Custodio declares he looked on with as much 
respect as if she had been his mother ; but being on one occasion 
left at the sitio whilst his master was absent a few weeks, evil 
tongues put it into the head of the latter that the slave and the 
caseira had played him false. He entered the house and laid his 
loaded gun by him, and when Custodio shortly after entered to 
bid his master welcome, he without saying a word presented the 
gun at Custodio and pulled the trigger. Fortunately it merely 
flashed in the pan, but Custodio, though totally unable to 
account for such a reception, saw, not only from the act but from 
the expression of his master's countenance, that the latter was 
bent on killing him, and needed no second warning to flee for 
his life. He was soon deep in the forest, and at night came 
down to the river-side, seized a montaria, and set off up the river. 
When he reached Sta. Isabel he ventured to go ashore, and 
entered the house of some Indians whom he knew, where he sat 
down to eat and recounted to them his story. But he did not 
remark that among those who listened to it were two half-whites 
who resolved to gain a reward by placing him again in slavery. 
They accordingly waited for him outside the house with loaded 
guns ; but Custodio was made aware of their intention. His only 
weapon was a long knife fastened to the end of a stick ; he grasped 
this and, waving it right and left, leaped out of the doorway. 
His assailants gave back, and, ere either of them could present his 
musket, he had rounded the corner of the house and plunged among 
the Coflee trees and other brush, of which there is mostly no lack 
near an Indian village. Thence to the forest was only a few 
steps, and he was soon safe from his pursuers, for the nonce. 
He resolved to venture no more on inhabited places, and pain- 
fully made his way through the forest till he reached the mouth 
of the Marania, swimming across the mouths of the cahos that 
lay in his path. Here, with only his knife, he stripped the bark 
off a tree-trunk in a piece and made of it a canoe — an art he had 
learnt from his friends the Yabahanas, whom it was now his 
object to reach. With his knife he made also a paddle, and thus 
equipped set off up the Marania, subsisting solely on wild fruits 
and procuring fire when he needed it by rubbing together fragments 
of Cocurito. In this way he succeeded in reaching the land of 
the Yabahanas. Here he remained in safety two or three years, 
and took to himself a wife ; but wishing to inhabit some place 
where he could turn to account his skill as a blacksmith, crossed 
over to the Pacimoni, and down this river and the Casiquiari to 
San Carlos. By the constitution of Venezuela, slaves from Brazil 
who cross the frontier are free, but by some treason a Portuguese, 
who was going to the Barra, seized Custodio by night and carried 
him away bound all the way down the Rio Negro. This was 
