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 I 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 I 
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 " ^ 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 
» Huts. 
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