262 
TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. 
[March, 
I had gone on here in my regular routine some time^ 
when one morning, on getting up, I found none of the 
Indians, and no fire in the verandah. Thinking they 
had gone out early to hunt or fish, as they sometimes i 
did, I lit the fire and got my breakfast, but still no sign | 
of any of them. Looking about, I found that their i 
hammocks, knives, an earthen pan, and a few other 
articles, were all gone, and that nothing was left in the i 
house but what was my own. I was now convinced 
that they had run away in the night, and left me to j 
get on as I could. They had been rather uneasy for 
some days past, asking me when I meant to go back. 
They did not like being among people whose language 
they could not speak, and had been lately using up an 
enormous quantity of farinha, hoping when they had 
finished the last basket that I should be unable to pur- 
chase any more in the village, and should therefore be 
obliged to return. The day before I had just bought 
a fresh basket, and the sight of that appears to have 
supplied the last stimulus necessary to decide the ques- 
tion, and make them fly from the strange land and still 
stranger white man, who spent all his time in catching 
insects, and wasting good caxa^a by putting fish and 
snakes into it. However there was now nothing to be 
done, so I took my insect-net, locked up my house, put 
the key (an Indian-made wooden one) in my pocket, . 
and started off for the forest. 
I had luckily, a short time before, bought a fine j 
Venezuelan cheese and some dried beef, so that, with 
plenty of cassava-bread and plantains, I could get on«j^j 
very well. In the evening some of my usual visitors i 
