152 
Two Lilies oe ihe Valley. 
530. We left after a short stay and soon caught up with the boats that 
had hurried on ahead : it was about evening when dead tired we reached 
the Waika or Akawai settlement Manari, which was also situate on a 
rise on the bank. It consisted of six large houses, the exact counter-part 
of those miserable shanties we had seen in the afternoon, for not only 
on account of the delightful method of their construction, but also the 
neatness and noticeable tidiness natural to them, they compared most 
favourably with the whole of the Warrau buildings, dementi's residence 
excepted. Though the impression made upon us by their homes was one 
of the pleasantest, the pleasure was still further increased by the gen- 
eral appearance of the occupants. The cleanliness of their persons, their 
children, and the nattiness of all their domestic arrangements exercised 
a most salutary effect upon us, after more than a month's stay among the 
dirty Warraus, and yet we had caught the women busily engaged in the 
clean business of baking and chewing bread, infallible signs that we 
were shortly to be witnesses of a 1’aiwari. All the men, except the chief- 
lain, had gone to hunt the game required for the feast. The latter, al- 
ready aged, received us extremely cordially and at once arranged to ac- 
commodate us in the largest and nicest of the houses. 
531. These people are inlinitively more closely allied to us than those 
creatures whom 1 visited with Gaberalli in the afternoon. Except for 
the apron-belt which had a much greater breadth and length than 
that of the Warraus, reaching pretty well down to the knees, and was 
plaited out of blue and white beads without however containing any 
winding patterns (gewundenen Figuren ) , the well set-up female figures 
went about naked. And yet there was spread among them, especially 
the younger ones, as was to be noticed so often subsequently, a naive 
modesty which, as regards pure womanliness, undoubtedly stands on 
an inlinitively higher level than the unnatural prudery of an exagger- 
ated and veneered civilisation. We came across girls here with real- 
ly perfect figures, amongst whom the two Lilies of the Valley, twin 
daughters of the chief, undeniably carried off the prize for beauty. Had 
the complexion of these truly plastic beauties) been less brown, and their 
number three, we could have been pardoned for mistaking them for the 
Graces, who, wandering over the Earth, had lost their way, and with 
tender diffidence, were now coming towards us from out of the chief- 
tain’s natty house. Yet even with this brown complexion, and the num- 
ber two, we were none the less surprised, for it was impossible for any 
of us Europeans to have hitherto seen a more perfect symmetry of limb, 
and such a clear-cut Greek profile which received still further charm 
from the long black tresses that fell over the beautiful brown shoulders 
like a natural veil. On my departure from the home land I had receiv- 
ed several little ornaments from a friend for the prettiest Indian girl 
I was to meet : the Lilies of the Valley are probably still wearing the 
string-beads and bracelets. 
532. It was only the occupation at which they were just then en- 
gaged, that did not support our flight of fancy — the cheeks filled with 
cassava-bread, the chewing of the contents while going about their other 
business and their haste from time to time to the huge trough to rid 
themselves of the masticated brew and there take up a new supply, were 
