Caries Become Changed into Stones. 
291 
before a fatality occurred, although he implored them, in spite of the 
danger, not to cut the line, hut to help him in some other way. Cooking 
was continued the whole night through, for the knowledge of having fish 
in camp that would certainly be spoilt by the morning did not allow any 
of the Indians or negroes to think about sleep. 
833. On the right bank next morning we reached the 
narrow mouth of the Simoni, the bed of which imme- 
diately behind its entrance into the Rupununi spreads 
out like a pond. The sides are low and apparently more fertile 
than those of its main stream. On the farther side of the mouth a whole 
series of from 12 to 15 foot high isolated porous blocks of rock which 
the Indians called Kirinambo attracted my attention. They stretch from 
the bank towards North East North and in their outward appearance 
they look uncommonly like a row of people. “A long long while ago,” 
the Macusis told us “the Caribs came as far as here with hostile intent to 
surprise the Macusis and exterminate them from off the face of the earth. 
At that time the Good Spirit still lived among our forefathers; he 
felt sorry for his wards and turned the Caribs into these stones.” 
831. We now got close to Wai-ipukari Inlet, the landing place for 
Pirara, although the village itself was situate another 11 miles inland. 
As we could not attach implicit belief to the statements of the Indians 
that some Brazilians were still there, all precautionary measures were 
taken to guard against a surprise as well as to avoid anything that could 
make the military stationed there cognisant of our proximity. Each of 
the boatmen received a certain number of ball-cartridges; similar loading 
was prepared for the small mortars, and no one from now on was to 
dare fire a weapon. But with these warlike preparations the jaws of our 
escort dropped : their hearts were in their mouths. While the Indians, 
particularly the Macusis, who for the greatest part had already been so 
often witness of the ghastly scenes practised during the slave-raids 
carried on by the Brazilians, received the weapons out of the supply of 
“trade”with flashing eyes and the distinctly expressed wish — “if I could 
only satisfy through your means my revenge for all the burnt-down 
settlements, all my murdered relatives and tribesmen” — these precau- 
tionary measures brought into existence exactly the opposite sentiments 
in the Negroes, coloured people, and unfortunately also in our four 
Soutü-Germans who had no inkling that on this expedition such perilous 
incidents could possibly take place. Hamlet and Stöckle again sur- 
passed everybody else. We strove in vain to force a weapon on the 
former; he swore black and blue that he now and never would use it, for 
by doing so he would only make his unhappy lot worse. Although the 
three remaining Germans possessed at least sufficient sense of honour as 
not to give expression to their anxiety in such a cowardly whimper, 
their long faces and trembling hands nevertheless betrayed it quite 
enough — signs that the Indians noticed with contemptuous looks. I 
must admit that I was ashamed of my landsmen. Man’s mind is indeed 
a mystery; the very same people who had been hourly exposed to the 
greatest peril and who had trusted themselves to the broad expanse of 
uncertain Ocean, people whose lives had so often hung on the slightest 
