Indifference & Apathy to the Sick. 
328 
provision field with her children and the whole of her tame live-stock, 
either as advance or rear guard. The housemaster usually leads the 
procession until the parting of the ways in the forest later on. The village, 
so full of life but a short while ago, soon looks as if it were abandoned ; 
only here and there one occasionally sees an inquisitive old granny at the 
door of a house, or a couple of small boys rolling and romping around 
in the dust. Burdened like the mother, the little girls have to follow her 
to her work, to be at hand in all her female duties, and help her main- 
tain in the field the fight against the forest, that is ever striving to 
recover its lost territory again. As night draws nigh one sees the residents 
hastening home from all directions, the men with their trophies of the 
chase, the women with loads of manihot, bananas and o agar- cane, and 
the deserted settlement soon resumes its former scene of the busiest 
activity. 
907. On the fourth day of my stay, about evening time, the shouting 
and screaming of several boys who had just bathed and now came rushing 
into the village with the words “Paranaghieri, Paranaghieri v ’ indicated 
the advent of the longed-for Stöckle. From wliat he told us the military 
were just on the point of leaving the village to erect the Fort that lias been 
previously noted. On the following morning Tiedge was to return to 
Pirara with the Indians who had brought my servant here. 
90S. I had already found on my arrival a sick woman whose condition 
was daily getting worse. The indifference and apathy with which the 
people treated the helpless creature, whom they left lying unnoticed in 
the house during the busy part of the day, made an unpleasant impression 
on me. I was yet lying in my hammock one morning after Stöckle’s arrival, 
and he was also resting after his exertions of the day before, while Tiedge 
had already gone to bathe at the riverside before setting out on his 
return journey, when a noisy shriek and uproar as well as a gunshot in 
the sick woman's house at once made me wide enough awake. Startled, I 
raised myself and found Stöckle already in the same position with a 
disturbed and anxious countenance and looking in the direction whence 
the sound proceeded. A second shot was now heard and the screaming 
still further increased. Out at once I jumped to the ground to satisfy 
myself as to the cause of the unusual row, when 1 just happened to catch 
sight of Tiedge’s head : he had taken French leave behind a tree, probably 
to protect himself from the death-dealing bullets. A third shot then rang 
out and women and children came rushing out of all the houses wailing 
any crying in a terrible fashion. Xo bridle could now curb my curiosity. I 
quickly rushed to the house of uproar and was about to enter when 
I felt myself held back by Stöckle, who implored me by heaven and earth 
to desist doing so, because only murder and death could be rampant 
there. I certainly did not discover murder, but only the wan hand of 
Death, for the poor sick woman bad just died. Every minute the soace 
was being gradually filled by weeping and wailing women who, holding 
their likewise squalling children by the hand, surrounded the hammock 
wherein the corpse lay, shook the bed of death, wrung their hands, 
gave vent to cries enough to pierce one’s very marrow-bones, and at the 
same time expressed such deep suffering and such unfeigned sorrow as 
