146 
The Midnight Raconteur, 
one-time settlement. (Warina), where we still ought to find a few Indian 
houses. The path to them led through a flourishing cassava field the 
stalks of which reached a height of from 8 to 10 feet and formed a reg- 
ular arcade. 
510. The houses were the most miserable I had hitherto seen and 
together with their occupants, some 10 in number, were so covered with 
dirt that we Europeans could not stand the sight of them. A frightful 
eye-disease, to which they all were subject, offered a picture that struck 
still further terror. In some, the eyes were entirely suffused with 
blood, whilst in others the disease had forced the eye ball out of the sock- 
et: the poor neglected children particularly suffered in this way because 
the mothers, indifferent to their little ones’ sufferings, had not even re- 
moved the matter surrounding the trickling eye-ball. Clement! assured 
us that ihis awful eve-complaint was the sole reason that had driven 
him and his people from the place. Those who had stayed behind only 
wanted to remain for such time as the fruits of their labour in the fields 
could be harvested.* 
511. Night proved as unkind as the whole day: the rain continued 
io fall in torrents and by two o'clock in the morning, dementi who had 
slung his hammock close to ours, already started to spin yarns. His lis- 
teners did not seem to have completed their sleep, because the exclama- 
tions of wonder and surprise ever became weaker and more infrequent 
until they finally died away altogether. This could not however stem 
the tide of the chieftain’s flow of speech : the ardour of his portrayal was 
rather the more increased to such a pitch thalt he raised himself in his 
hammock and carried on liis story with the most lively gesticulations. It 
finally became unbearable but, on Mr. King angrily calling out that if 
he could not hold his tongue he would have to sling his hammock in one 
of the farther houses, we managed to get some momentary rest. The high- 
lv imaginative store-teller yielded with a grunt, but hardly did he believe 
that we had slumbered again than, in a softer and more subdued voice, 
he resumed the thread of his narrative: this however carried him away 
once more «and made him forget our previous notice so completely that in 
a few minutes’ time his speech was pouring forth with such inspiring 
?eal and rousing him to such intense excitement that we were forced to 
burst into loud laughter. 
512. A longer stay amongst the dirty occupants of these houses seem- 
ed to us more burdensome than to continue our journey in the rain. On 
I he left bank, still in the fore-noon, Ave passed the Amissi mouth Avliich 
Avas considerably wider than the Barima itself. As the Indians said, tlie 
Amissi runs only a short course and is in communication with the Kai- 
tuma by means of several natural channels (Itabbos) : its basin is gen- 
erally swampy and unoccupied, and its current extremely weak. 
513. The water had already for a long time past lost its saline taste, 
though tidal influences were still unmistakable, and all attempts at cul- 
tivation of the water-shed up to this point would prove fruitless, as was 
also indicated by several abandoned Warrau settlements, of which some 
had been erected on platforms built immediately above water-level. Dense 
• /.Sa > Note.oalSec. 325 (F.G.R.) 
