250 DOTTINGS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. XV.—B. P. 
animals on their bodies by means of the actual cautery, 
and paint their faces exactly as he describes it. 
The son Don Fernando’s manner of speaking of the 
Mosquito Indians impressed me with the idea that he 
had possibly suffered humiliation or defeat at their 
hands; the fact that they blacken their faces in war 
was probably the reason he described them as almost 
negroes in colour, for it seems that they never ap¬ 
proached the Spaniards in a friendly spirit. I could 
not learn from any tradition extant that they ever 
ate their fish raw; fire was always procurable, and 
the probability is against any such custom, for if 
any one will take the trouble to try he will soon 
discover how very difficult a matter it would be to 
eat raw fish without being choked with the small 
bones. As to the charge of eating human flesh, I can 
only say that not a trace of cannibalism has been ob¬ 
served by subsequent explorers. I can quite under¬ 
stand, however, that such a mistake might readily 
have occurred, for I jumped at that very conclusion 
myself on one occasion, when an Indian woman 
brought in for our breakfast, wrapped in a huge 
plantain-leaf, what I verily believed to be a boiled 
baby; it was entire, legs, arms, head, all complete. 
The whiteness of the flesh, however, was reassuring, 
for an instant’s reflection reminded me that Indian 
babies are not usually other than dark brown. A 
closer inspection showed the mistake into which I 
had nearly fallen : I was simply destined to breakfast 
off monkey, which, with roasted plantains, a capital 
substitute for bread, and plenty of cacao to wash down 
