288 
The Evil One’s Wonderful Weapon. 
generally respected my brother as the chief personage, he naturally had 
to shoot first. The mere appearance of the little “Arakabusa” had 
already raised the spectators to the tip-top of expectation, which 
increased every instant more and more as they heard the first, second, 
third, and fourth shots ring out and saw the balls strike the tree on each 
occasion, without the weapon being reloaded — at the fifth shot,' the 
place was as if it had been swept clean, everybody having got up and 
away, with the two chiefs in the lead. This was a case where only 
wizardry or one of the evil spirits must have had a hand, because an 
, arakabusa that in spite of not being reloaded, did not stop firing, but 
could give a report and throw a ball, was up to now far beyond the 
limits of their experience, and far above their conceptions of possibili- 
ties. The wonderful weapon certainly remained for a long time the 
object of their most earnest conversation. Similar astonishment was 
also aroused when, on shooting our guns over the water they first noticed 
the ball ricochetting from the surface at a distance of 000 yards. 
816. Up to now, nothing had been heard or seen of the military 
expedition, but as our patients were remarkably improved, and we were 
abundantly provided with provisions, we said good-bye next morning to 
dear Haiowa which, with its wonderful view over the broad savannah 
and over the rapidly advancing column of fire, impressed itself all the 
more deeply upon my memory when, on my return, I found only abandoned 
houses. The chieftain and wife and his son died soon after our departure, 
• — the Evil Spirit to whom they must all submit had pitched his camp 
among the harmless residents. 
817. From Haiowa onwards, the Kupununi still always 200 yards 
wide, keeps on winding towards the north-west. The burnt-off grass, 
and bare branches of trees and bush on the northern bank showed that 
the conflagration had also pursued its devastating course here. Having 
already passed, before reaching Haiowa, the mouth of the Curassawaka 
where my brother six years ago waited for the rainy season and which 
flows into the Rupununi from the south, we now on the continuation of 
our journey, during the course of the morning, struck the mouths of the 
Watama and Annay Creeks. The latter comes down from the northern 
hills ami joins with the Rupununi immediately in the sharp bend which 
it forms to the southward; the junction lies in 3° 54' 30" lat. N. and 
50° 1' 29" long. TV. Annay village lies at the source of the stream on 
the eastern foot of the Annay Range. In the Macusi language Annay 
means maize, which is found growing wild here. The settlement was 
formerly occupied by Caribs with whom my brother spent six weeks 
on his first journey with a view to re-establishing the undermined health 
of his party. For me the village had a still further special interest in 
that a strange report is connected with it, which we find related in the 
diary of two Englishmen, Smith and Marine-Lieutenant Gulliver, at 
present in my brother’s possession. Both these gentlemen went up the 
Waini in 1828, crossed the small tract of land between this and the 
Cuyuni and following the latter down to its mouth in the Essequibo 
then travelled up it to the Rupununi, from which latter they reached the 
.Pirara, Mahu, Takutu, Rio Branco and Rio Negro. On the Barra do 
