We Start for the Waini. 
81 
279. But while the best of lmmpur prevailed inside the house, quite 
different feelings were being expressed outside it. My brother's 
boats’ crew consisted almost entirely of married coloured men and 
negroes, and although the proposed line of route was planned for but a 
few months, a number of disquieting rumours relative to the hostile 
attitude of the Venezuelans towards the Expedition had given rise to so 
general a panic that the poor women already saw their men for the last 
time. With the most woeful expostulations they individually and col- 
lectively tried to soften their hard-hearted husbands and get them to 
turn back while there was still time, and not leave them and their un- 
fortunate children in distress: but they, leaning on their oa-rs painted 
in various colours, either manfully withstood all tears, entreaties, and 
prayers, or else interpolated some coarse expression during a momentary 
lull in the squalling tumult, at the same time looking very anxious to 
get away, while my genial South German, Stöckle, started pitying the 
poor wives and tried comforting Ihe children. The heart of my little 
boy from Halle also seemed to have become too heavy, because he looked 
at me with eyes very far from as saucy as they were before. 
280 It was already noon when in the company of our friends and 
a large concourse of people we stepped on board the schooner where we 
found all cases and barrels stowed away, and the two large corials 
wherein we were subsequently to continue our journey by river well 
protected on the deck. With the firing of our ship’s cannons and the 
repeated hurrahs of the crowds collected on shore, the anchor was 
weighed and the sails hoisted. 
281. Thanks to a favourable wind blowing, the city with its envelope 
of palms soon disappeared from view: it was only the Lighthouse Tower 
that delayed it with its good-bye, until that also followed, when at last 
the fruitful stretch of country, the “Arabian” coast, brightened with 
the setting sun. emerged before us in the azure distance and bade us wel- 
come. The sudden onset of darkness deprived us only too quickly of this 
glorious sight. The name “Arabian” coast is a corruption of Arowa- 
biecie, the term which the Arawak Indians apply to a small species of 
tiger-cat, which is said to have been very plentiful here formerly. On 
the other hand it is maintained that the word is a corruption of the 
Caribbean Coast, the Caribs having occupied Ihis territory in large num- 
bers. 
282. Although our voyage along this coast had commenced so aus- 
piciously, it became all the more stormy with nightfall : a rough evening 
was only to be expected from the black threatening thunder-clouds that 
already before sundown had towered over the distant ocean-horizon. 
The awful tempest burst of a sudden with a fury that our vessel could 
not face. As if storming at the very gates of heaven, the waves with 
their sharp-defined edges, momentarily illumined by a dazzling flash of 
lightning, soon made her the playball of their fancy and the pilot frank- 
ly admitted that he no longer knew his bearings :— a huge shock succeed- 
ed by a shaking of the vessel told us in short that we were stuck 
fast upon a sandbank. The storm and savage struggle of the elements 
fortunately abated after a while, to be followed by a strikingly contrast- 
ed calm which our schooner quite comfortably shared, for she could now 
ride peacefully at anchor, 
