Whereupon the deciding answer was translated: "You are all welcome
provided you place your arms in the bottom of the canoe."

Next message: "We ask you to place your arms in the _maloca_; we
are friends."

After the last message we paddled briskly ahead, and at the end of
one hour's work we made a turn of the creek and saw a large open
space where probably five hundred Indians had assembled outside of
two round _malocas_, constructed like ours. How much I now regretted
leaving my precious camera out in the forest, but that was a thing of
the past and the loss could not be repaired. The view that presented
itself to my eyes was a splendid and rare one for a civilised man
to see. The crowd standing on the banks had never seen a white man
before; how would they greet me?

Little dogs barked, large scarlet _araras_ screamed in the tree-tops,
and the little children hid themselves behind their equally fearful
mothers. The tribal Chief, a big fellow, decorated with squirrel tails
and feathers of the _mutum_ bird around, his waist and with the tail
feathers of the scarlet and blue _arara_-parrot adorning his handsome
head, stood in front with his arms folded.

We landed and the operator dismantled his musical apparatus and laid
it carefully in the bottom of the canoe. The two Chiefs embraced each
other, at the same time uttering their welcome greeting "_He--He_." I
was greeted in the same cordial manner and we all entered the Chief's
_maloca_ in a long procession. Here in the village of the kindred
tribe we stayed for two days, enjoying unlimited hospitality and