54 
River Manatiwait. 
ffered along behind tlie man in front, dominated with hut the one and 
only idea of reeoj^nising the Avord "Tuna (Water) ' in every unusual 
sound. 
loo. And yet this lethargy \Yas to be suddenly dispelled in a rather 
unpleasant manner. Tlie path having become more and more impassable 
and blocked, the Indians who happened to be in front were obliged from 
now onwards to clear away with axe and cuthiss so much as would allow 
of those behind creeping their way through. Several sudden cries of pain, 
a dull buzzing in my ears, and the complete scattering of the procession 
strained my relaxed senses to the extent of letting me convince myself 
of the reason for the mad rush, as well as for taking part in it. While the 
bruslnvood was being cut, several nests, the size of one's head, of a large 
wasp {3Iariiiihont(i) , had fallen to the ground: their occupants, now 
really furious, were dropping upon and following us. Wildly screaming, 
and down-turned faces covered with their hands, the Indians vanished 
into the scrub, but the oft repeated yells of distress indicated plaiidy 
enough that many had been overtaken by the angered creatures, as was 
proved by the thickly-swollen faces when the luirsuit was over. To avoid 
such a Avasps' nest even the Indian does not shun making a considerable 
circuit. 
134. A number of paths through the thicket suddenly revived our 
holies afresh. Men miust be living in the neighbourhood, streams must be 
close by : for otherwise, why so many roads to cross ours in all direc- 
tions? The earnest warning of the Indians striding ahead, not to take 
any of these misleading tracks, but always to follow the man ahead, 
again destroyed our sanguine si)irits — they were the pads of tapirs and 
bush-hogs. The deception was all the more pardonable for us Europeans 
because the hard ground allowed of no actual inii)ression, and it W'as 
really only the praictised eye of an Indian that could differentiate 
between such a pad and the right road. Woe be to him who folloAvs these 
misleading tracks: he may travel for days, for weeks, without meeting a 
house or human being, unless hunger and thirst kill him beforeliand. 
lo5. \\"e might have thus covered a stretch of about a mile in the 
impenetrable forest, when I heard a distant voice— I stood rooted to the 
spot, and listened, — Avhen the words "Tuna, Tuna," struck my anxiously 
attentive ear. Delighted and overjoyed, I repeated them,i in as loud a 
voice as w^as left to m'e, and rushing ahead as fast as possilde to the object 
of our desire, I soon stood with truly feverish excitement in the bed of 
the small stream Manatiwau where certainly no running wat(M\ l)ut 
several darkly coloured pools were to be seen. What worried me, what 
w^orried all of us, were the swarms of frogs which, with their fore-feet 
leisurely outstretched, were swimming about on the surface and, fright- 
ened by the noise, Avere ducking down into the s^-ampy bottom where they 
dug themselves into the mud, and puddled the water still worse than it 
naturally Avas. To us, the Avater w-as as nectar in Avliich Ave rapturously 
dipped our cassava to take the first bite for the day, l)ecause the tor- 
menting thirst, dried mouth, and parched gums had rendered the swal- 
lowing of diT^ bread im'possible. It was a feast for the gods, during the 
enjoyment of A\'hich all the worries and troubles that Ave had endured, 
