CHAP. V A VERY PICTURESQUE SCENE 49 
green lizards peer curiously from chinks of rock, and 
spiders run along their lacework of countless silken 
ropes well filled with l^s and wings. 
A chorus of barking curs greeted me as I reached the 
camp, which consisted of a few bark humpies on the bank 
of the river, from which a thin curl of smoke was rising. 
A woman of monstrous ugliness, whose mouth alone 
would have placed her in the category of ogress, threw 
down her bundle of sticks and greeted me with a sudden 
access of enthusiasm, and I was instantly surrounded by 
a gaping crowd of scantily-clothed natives. A loving 
husband on the conjugal threshold was administering a 
wholesome rebuke to his spouse, who did not in any 
way seem to resent it, a shower of blows now and then 
flatters their amour proprty and in dutiful obedience she 
instantly gave up a roasted delicacy that had evidently 
been the cause of their quarrel. The debris of their 
morning feast was being devoured by the starved- 
looking dogs. 
It was a very picturesque scene ; the rich, dark 
brown of the natives and their huts, the reds of the 
dying fires and films of blue smoke as they curled up- 
wards against the dark background of forest jungle, 
and in the foreground the sheen of sunlight on the 
river, where the lithe figure of a native boy was 
dexterously paddling a little canoe to the opposite side, 
all combined to form a picture. Wild beautiful nature 
shut me in on every side. How could I caricature her ? 
In utter despair I shut up my sketch-book and made 
my way back under the shade of the forest trees with 
their network of branches above all hung and festooned 
with thickets of clematis, convolvulus, and flowering 
bignonias, erythrinas, tossing acacias, feathery palms — 
but I have not the gift of words to describe half their 
beauty. Now in the sunlight the river-banks are green 
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