my mind that these other Indians might harm me, so black was the name
that people down at the settlements had given them.

Until this time, as related above, I had thought best not to exhibit
the character of my automatic pistol, and I had never used it here,
but before I started on this journey I decided to give them an
example of its power, and possibly awe them. Inviting the Chief and
all the tribe to witness my experiment, I explained to them that
this little weapon would make a great noise and bore a hole through
a thick tree. The Chief examined it gingerly after I had locked the
trigger mechanism. He had heard of such arms, he said, but thought
that they were much larger and heavier. This one, he thought, must
be a baby and he was inclined to doubt its power.

Selecting an "assai" palm of about nine inches diameter, across the
creek, I took steady aim and fired four bullets. Three of the bullets
went through the same hole and the fourth pierced the trunk of the
palm about two inches higher. The Chief and his men hurried across the
creek and examined the holes which caused then to discuss the affair
for more than an hour. The empty shells which had been ejected from the
magazine were picked up by two young girls who fastened them in their
ears with wire-like fibres, whereupon a dozen other women surrounded
me, beseeching me to give them also cartridge-shells. I discharged
more than a dozen bullets, to please these children of the forest,
who were as completely the slaves of fashion as are their sisters of
more civilised lands.

Early the next morning we started up the river. In one canoe the
Chief and I sat on jaguar skins, while two men paddled. In another
canoe were four men armed with bows and arrows and blow-guns, and a