IV 
A NATIVE VILLAGE 
43 
heralds with our black boys, and presently out came 
the two black unclothed, shiny bodies to guide us. 
How active they were ; with mercurial swiftness they 
ran in front, laughing and chattering like two monkeys. 
Suddenly we came to a place too dangerous for 
riding, and we had to get off. I, for a moment, was 
only too delighted to find myself on my own feet again, 
but what a walk it was ! Now clambering up a steep 
rise, now sliding down a slippery gully, now into the 
open where the moon again came out casting strange 
shadows all round us, and I wondered once or twice 
what you would have said could you have seen me. 
Now we are going to be bogged altogether surely ! 
They say I must be carried or get on to my horse 
again, but no ! I would not do either, and by a 
succession of long jumps I came off unaided and better 
than some of them. How dark the scrub was, and at 
every step the horses kept getting entangled in the 
“ lawyers ” and long creeping vines. Presently mine 
stumbled and quivered all over, for he had been caught 
in a barbed wire fence, which the natives had stolen 
from the plantation and put round their camp, but 
beyond a few scratches he was none the worse. 
After another two minutes, we found ourselves on 
the bank of the river with “ gunyahs ” 1 all about, while 
a crowd of chattering unclothed natives pressed all 
round us. They were much amused at the sight of a 
“ white Mary,” and they brought out their piccaninnies 
for me to admire. We had a peep into all the gunyahs. 
In each was a fire at the entrance, and close beside many 
of them lay the gins and old men asleep. They gave 
me two tiny babies to hold ; they were only a day old 
and did not seem to mind being disturbed. The 
women were none of them five feet high, and for the 
1 Huts. 
