Such dense clouds of mosquitos that in one
clap of the hands I could kill twenty or thirty. This Indian toldo
consists of three large wigwams, in which live about eighty of the
most degraded aborigines to be found on earth. When they learned I
was not one of the Christians from across the river, and that I
came well introduced, they asked: Did I come across the big water
in a dug-out? Was it a day's journey? Would I give them some of "the
stuff that resembles the eggs of the ant?" (their name for rice).
I was permitted to occupy a palm hut without a roof, but I slept
under a tiger's skin, and that kept off dew and rain. They reserved
the right to come and go in it as they pleased. The women, with naked
babies astride their hips, the usual way of carrying them, were
particularly annoying. A little girl, however, perhaps ten years old,
named Supupnik (Sawdust), made friends with me, and that friendship
lasted during all my stay with them. Her face was always grotesquely
painted, but she was a sweet child.
These Indians are of normal stature, and are always erect and
stately, perhaps because all burdens are borne by straps on the
forehead.
