This, however, seemed to promise no other result than
that of driving them to their old solitary haunts on the banks of
the interior waters, for many families had already withdrawn
themselves. The absence of the usual cultivated trees and plants
gave the place a naked and poverty-stricken aspect. I entered one
of the hovels where several women were employed cooking a meal.
Portions of a large fish were roasting over a fire made in the
middle of the low chamber, and the entrails were scattered about
the floor, on which the women with their children were squatted.
These had a timid, distrustful expression of countenance, and
their bodies were begrimed with black mud, which is smeared over
the skin as a protection against mosquitoes. The children were
naked, the women wore petticoats of coarse cloth, ragged round
the edges, and stained in blotches with murixi, a dye made from
the bark of a tree. One of them wore a necklace of monkey's
teeth. There were scarcely any household utensils; the place was
bare with the exception of two dirty grass hammocks hung in the
corners.
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