174 
An Old Woman Gives me a Fright. 
tree fern^ around whicli the wliole population was soon gathered. Two 
of our carriers, villagers from Toroug-Yauwise, had agreed to accompany 
us as far as here, and were anxious to get back the following morning : 
the want of food, met with throughout the trip, found them ready to do 
all and everything except to accompany us farther. The number of 
young men among the Humeseta residents as well as the friendly and 
pleasing reception with Avhich we hatl been received, prompted us to ask 
the captain, afteii warming the cockles of his lieart with a few small 
trinkets, whether he could not manage to get some of his young 
subordinates to accompany our men who were returning to fetch th-3 
goods wanted on the journey that had been left behind at Torong- 
YauAN'ise. The carriers required were soon forthcoming. We conld not 
spare any of our coloured people, and therefore none could accompany 
them in order to guard our property : but the honesty of these Indians was 
a more certain guarantee than any other protection could have been. 
After we had fixed ourselves up, curiosity led me to have a peep inside 
the houses where poverty and dirt had taken up their abode. Large 
heaps of gnawed palm-stones, and maize-cobs without grain covered the 
floors of the first three that were entered. Except for the blowpipe and 
some ])ows and arrows almost all the implements generally met with in 
Indian 'quarters were jvanting: thei-e was only a number of hair-belts 
( Matupa) and thick bundles of still unplaited long black hair, the bay- 
leaf for bravery in the war hardly as yet completed which showed that 
the occupants were no cowards : everything else was missing except the 
large paiwari trough, painted with numerous figures, that proudly 
occupied the middle of each empty building. As the residents were all 
outside examining 'the Palefaces and their luggage I was able to have a 
quiet look round without being interrupted, and was just about to 
inspect the trough to see what the figures on the other side were like 
when a piercing shriek rang out from a hammock in one of the dark corn- 
ers of the house. It gave me such a fright that I stood Srtock still, and 
now recognised in it the most pitiable nude and prostrate figure of a 
female who had been unable to withstand any longer the fright caused by 
my strange appearance. So long as the wiiite man kept his distance, the 
sick creature had remained perfectly still and watched my movements: 
but as I gradually drew closer and closer to her, she could not refrain 
shouting for help. Shrieking wildly this veritable picture of misery tried 
to jump out of her hammock, which' she was only prevented from doing 
by weakness. Her appearance likewise gave me quite as much a shock 
as her cries for help, and I quickly made my exit. 
414. The thrillingly magnificent meteorological phenomenon that 
had hitherto taken place every evening, was to-day repeated to a degree 
never previously reached. The roai'ing of the thundei', the quivering 
lightning, the almost unbroken sombre masses of cloud with their edges, 
lashed by the confined hurricane, equally as dazzlingly illumined as our 
own immediate surroundings, the crackling boom of giant trees uprooted 
in the* neighbouring forest by the wild whirlwind which seemed to be 
smashing up everything around and under it, the obligato accompaniment 
supplied by the thunder claps for the dull rustle of the rain pouring from 
the broken cloud« — to put the matter shortly, all and everything 
