an almost unknown region and had no connection with white men or
Brazilians or people near the river. I tried in the course of the
mimical conversation to make him understand that, with six companions
from a big Chief's _maloca_ (meaning Coronel da Silva and the Floresta
headquarters), I had penetrated into the woods near this mighty Chief's
_maloca_,--here I pointed at the Chief--that the men had died from
fever and I was left alone and that luckily, I had found my way to
the free men of the forest (here I made a sweeping movement with my
hands). He nodded and the audience was over. I was led back to my
hammock to dream and eat, and dream again.

Although the Chief and his men presented an appearance wholly unknown
to me, yet it did not seem to distract me at the first glance, but
as my faculties slowly returned to their former activity, I looked
at them and found them very strange figures, indeed. Every man had
two feathers inserted in the cartilage of his nose; at some distance
it appeared as if they wore moustaches. Besides this, the Chief had
a sort of feather-dress reaching half way down to his knees; this
was simply a quantity of _mutum_ feathers tied together as a girdle
by means of plant-fibres. The women wore no clothing whatever, their
only ornamentation being the oval wooden piece in the lower lip and
fancifully arranged designs on face, arms, and body. The colours which
they preferred were scarlet and black, and they procured these dyes
from two plants that grew in the forest near by. They would squeeze
the pulp of the fruits and apply the rich-coloured juice with their
fingers, forming one scarlet ring around each eye, outside of this a
black and larger ring, and, finally, two scarlet bands reaching from
the temples to the chin.

There were probably sixty-five families in this communal hut,