490 NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
one will be surprised to hear of his death." Hena 
nu camisha " (" I have no shirt "), " and no sign will 
remain of violence having been used." (In fact, 
his only clothing was a strip of bark between his 
legs.) This he repeated a great many times, and 
all his companions applauded the idea. Three 
questions remained for them to discuss : the dis- 
posal of the body, of the goods, and of themselves. 
The first offered no difficulty, for on account of 
the climate the dead are mostly interred at the 
end of twenty-four hours, and they could say the 
man " had died of his illness and they had buried 
him. As to the goods, they would leave a few 
in each box so as to give the latter the appearance 
of not having been disturbed. As to what they 
would do themselves there were various opinions ; 
but at length they concluded that a better way 
than hiding themselves in the forest would be to 
present themselves boldly before the Comisario of 
San Carlos, tell their tale, and there would be an 
end of it, for " the man " was a foreigner a long 
way from his country and had no relations here to 
make any inquiry as to the mode of his death. It 
may be supposed that I listened to all this with 
breathless attention, and I could hardly believe 
that their acts would be conformable with their 
w^ords, till I heard them begin to lash themselves 
into a fury by recapitulating all the injuries they 
had received from the white men, all of which 
they considered themselves justified in retaliating 
on my devoted head — though in my short inter- 
course with them I had shown them only kind- 
ness, and particularly to Pedro Yurebe, whose little 
daughter I had a short time before cured of a 
