SoRORENG Comes to Meet Us. 
29 
on such a serious turn with the boy that we were forced to believe the 
worst. After getting- the wounds sucked out, we tied ligatures, used a 
wash of laudanum, and then applied continuous mollifying poultices of 
cassava bread. The symptoms had very mucli resemblance to those accom- 
panying snake-bite. It is imj)0ssible that this absolute nervous break- 
down can proceed from the mere wounding alone; very pro'-aUly it must 
be ascribed to the poison combined with it A powerful and lusty labourer 
w'ho, sliortly before our departure froiu Denieraia, was stuck by a sting 
ray on Zeelandia Estate died in the most awful convulsions. Thi Indians 
utilise the saw-like spines as arrow-tips, and as lancets for blood-letting. 
G9. Where the water had somewhat washed away the sandbanks a 
Avhite gravel was exposed in several places. The spread of the compa-.'t 
craggj' masses was S. 20° E., in connection with wliich the rocks showed 
a nunil)er of veins of different formation, about two feet ^^•i(le, whicli 
ran througli the strata IST. ()0° E. : quartz veins in plenty also puslied their 
way through tlie body <»f tlie range in E. 15° S. INlt. ^Niariwette or Taquiara 
jaises its liead about 2 miles distant from the left or western shore; its 
height is some 2 to 300 feet. 
70. Although the sufferings of our patients had somewliat snbside.l on 
the l'oll(!wing (Uiy they were still quite unable to use their feet, on which 
account V\ e had to l)ring them along in the corials. We continued our jour- 
ney under the difficulties hithei'to met with until the gi-owing number of 
rapids and cataracts increased them to such an extent as to make liS 
almost despair of contesting them further. Huge gi'anite and g.ieiss 
boulders often 40 to .50 feet in diameter, blocked the river almost step 
by step. 
71. After engineering the great rurucuku Cataract witii (>xtreme 
difficulty and just when Ave were sweating ourselves in dragging the 
corials over the next-following Falls of Matzipao t)irough a three-foot 
wide crevice, the only watercourse which it presented, we heard human 
voices in the bush alongside the bank: to our iindisguised joy, Sororeng 
soon stood before us in company with a huge muscular but phantastically 
dressed Indian whose noble and fearless features would have done credit; 
to the proudest Roman. His wonderful feather head-dress was made 
from the snoAv-white feathers of the South American Eagle {fTarpvia 
destructor Tern.) which, like osti-ich ])lnnies, hung in beant'/nl arcli.rs 
over a forehead-band composed of gi-een pnrrot feathers. The snptum of 
the nose was bored and in the opening swung a beaten-out and highly 
polished piece of money : in th*^ ear-holes, also pierced, he wore rounded 
six-inch long little sticks of "letter-wood" (Bro<^!miim AuhlcfU) which 
were decorated at the one end with variegated feather-bunch(\s. The 
beautiful powerful fiuure, the fantastic decoration and the won- 
derful l)lack shiny haii- hanging a long way over the shouldei's was some- 
thing so striking that I gazed at the man for a considerable time in sur- 
prise: it was a Wapisiana. 
72. According to Sororeng's account the overland party had alreadv 
reached the Wapisiana settlement of Tenette in the neighboui-liood of 
the Cursato Range on the tliird day after tlieir departure. Upset by 
our protracted absence the brave fellow had made up his mind to come 
