use of the words 'rapid,' 'cataract,' and 'fall' respectively. The first word should, it seems to me, be confined to places where the water passes down a very slight, however long, incline, usually among many scattered rocks. A cataract' is a place where a great body of water falls suddenly down a ledge of rock, abrupt but not perpendicular. Lastly, the word 'fall' should only be used of such places where the water falls abruptly down an unbroken cliff-like face of perpendicular rock, usually from a more considerable height than in the former cases. If these terms were used only in this way a very considerable increase in clearness would be given to our maps, and travellers would know better what lies before them. Among our crew was a Macusi boy called Moë, the son of the woman just mentioned. He was returning to his home on the savannah, after having spent two years in the service of a coloured man in Georgetown, where he had learned to speak English and to wear clothes. It was strange how quickly he now fell back into his old Indian habits. Even on the first day he threw off his clothes and resumed the ordinary Indian lap, a narrow strip of cloth passed between the legs, and suspended in front and at the back on a string tied round the waist. As he moved about among the other Indians, it was very evident that the clothes which he had worn for two years had made his skin become much fairer in tint. Strangely enough, he alone of all the Indians looked naked, and it was some months before the lighter tint of his skin, with the consequent effect of nakedness, disappeared. In other respects also he differed from the other Indians. He was even from the first lively and talkative, while they were for some time reserved and shy. He had learned some ugly tricks in town, such as swearing, though he did not know the meaning of the bad language he used. Once when I was teasing him, he calmly and with a pretty smile recommended me to go to hell, Baas.' The banks of the Essequibo above Aretaka are almost uninhabited, even by Indians; throughout the several hundred miles of country through which we passed between Aretaka and the mouth of the Roopoonooni, we came across but three or four settlements. Our camps, therefore, were generally made in the forest. As, however, Indians are continually passing up and down the river, there are certain recognised camping-places, from which the bush has been cleared. Sometimes, however, when as night approached we were not near one of those places, we had to clear ground for ourselves in the bush. The nights spent in the open air in the tropics are a pleasant memory. By the time the camp was ready the daylight had faded, and our fires alone threw round a circle of flickering light, contrasting strangely with the darkness of the surrounding forest. Where the firelight was strongest the Indians lay, smoking and talking in their hammocks, close to each of which was a fire, which occasionally flared up and seemed to lick the naked skins of the Indians through the meshes of the hammock. Not content with this, the Indians sometimes made the boys take lighted palm-leaves and singe them as they lay in their hammocks, this strange proceeding being intended to destroy savage insects. One by one the Indians fell asleep. Various kinds of frogs kept up an almost deafening concert of marvellously varied croaks, some musical, some most unmusical. One imitated the beat of paddles striking in regular time against the sides of a canoe after the Indian custom; and the likeness was the more deceitful because the sound alternately rose and fell gradually as though a canoe came up the river, passed the camp, and was then paddled up the stream out of ear-reach. Often and often I have lain long in doubt whether the sound heard was caused by paddles or by frogs. And while the frogs croaked, every now and then a nightjar flitted swiftly and most silently by, and then suddenly shrieked out its loud cry of Work-work-work-to-hell.' Or another and larger species began to moan out the four notes of its most hideous and depressing cry of Who-who-who NIGHT IN THE FOREST. 13 who,' each note sounded in rapid succession, the first shrill and high-pitched, each of the succeeding ones lower, and the last an almost inaudible moan. It is only comparable to the cry of a despairing and dying human being. At times was heard the noise-something between a snort and a bellowof a cayman; and at other times mysterious sounds, resembling the crack of pistol-shots, which I afterwards found were caused by caymans raising their tails into the air and bringing them down sharply on the surface of the water. Toward morning the loudest and most appalling noise of all broke out. Beginning suddenly in a deep roar, it became louder and louder, till the whole forest rang with the din. It is hardly possible on first hearing this to believe that the terrific roar is produced only by the somewhat small red howling monkey (Mycetes seniculus), called baboon in the colony. Before daylight the Indians were out of their hammocks, making preparation for the coming day's journey. A plunge into the river was the first thing. In the early morning the temperature near the river is comparatively low; though the thermometer stands perhaps at 70°, the air feels as chilly as on an autumn day in England, and the water, having retained much of the warmth imparted by the sun of the previous day, seems by contrast like that of a warm bath. And now the sound and sights of the day began. Some toucans, perched on the very highest boughs of a tall tree, were revelling in the morning sun, and greeting it with their usual yelping cries. Emphasis is given to each puppylike yelp by an odd and comical antic; the head is jerked down, the tail lifted almost at right angles to the body. In the distance an Indian canoe appeared from behind a bend in the river. The naked skins of the Indians in it literally flashed red in the intense light. A scarlet ibis (Ibis rubra) -the only one, by the way, that I ever saw so high up on this river-flew by and settled upon a tree between us and the approaching canoe; but it hardly looked more red than did the Indians. Flights of parrots, crying shrilly, began to pass over the river to their feeding grounds, flying so high that their colours were not to be discerned. From the forest the 'pi-pī-yo,' or greenheart bird (Lipangus cineraceus), began incessantly to cry its own Indian name; this is, if not the commonest, yet certainly the most noticed bird in the forests of Guiana, for its shrill cry, heard nearly all day long, is the most characteristic sound of these forests. Having no animal food, we stopped early in the day to hunt. Half the booty, a young tapir, was given to the Indians, who, as usual, immediately boiled and began to eat it; for an Indian, when he gets flesh, is never satisfied until it is all eaten, after which he contentedly does without animal food until he has sufficient energy to go and procure a fresh supply. The other half of the tapir was put on a babracot to dry. A babracot is a small stage of green sticks, built some two feet above the fire, on which the flesh is placed and smoked. Flesh treated in this way, though it loses its distinctive flavour, keeps good for many days even in that climate. Just opposite to us was Gluck Island, which I visited on another occasion to examine a pond long known as one of the native haunts of the Victoria regia lily. The pond was so closely surrounded by high and rankly luxuriant vegetation that it was impossible to see the water from the damp, swampy banks. But by climbing a tree which grew out over the water, and so getting above the thick growth of tall reeds and prickly palms, we got a view over the whole pond. Except one small plant at the further end, the lily had entirely disappeared; this was probably owing to the late times of dry weather, which had caused the pond to dry and so allowed the heat of the sun to kill the plants. The same fate had happened during the past season to the lily in several ponds in and near Georgetown, into which it had been introduced. While climbing down from my post of observation on the tree, I heard the Indians shouting out that they had found a cayman's nest. Among the deep mass of rotting leaves on the bank of the pond, in a gloomily dark and damp place under trees and reeds, was a fitting spot for such a nest. On a large heap of decaying vegetable matter, evidently collected by the parent cayman, lay thirty-seven. large, long-shaped eggs with thick, porcelain-like shells. The True Caribs greedily seized them as a delicacy. Afterwards, at dinner, I eat part of one of the eggs, boiled hard, and found it very like a duck's egg in texture and taste, but with a faintly perceptible flavour of musk. Just as we were going to sleep that night, the Indians insisted on loading the guns and placing them near our hammocks, saying that there were Ackawoi kenaimas, or murderers, about. We had seen men of that tribe passing and repassing during the afternoon; but I need hardly say that the assertion that these had murderous intentions towards us was unfounded. It is, however, very common for one tribe to make this accusation against the members of another tribe. There is, as will presently be explained, some occasional foundation for it. The Ackawois bear a particularly bad character in this respect. Far into the night the Indians, sitting in a circle round the camp fires, continued to gorge their food; and at last, when weary of sitting up to eat, they threw themselves into their hammocks, over which they had suspended certain dainty morsels of meat so as to hang close by their mouths, that no time might be lost whenever they happened to wake. Their power of gorging is really wonderful; I once was able to calculate the amount consumed in thirty-six hours by ten men, and found it to be 252 lbs. of smoked fish, 62 lbs. of fresh fish, a whole wild hog, and an indefinite quantity of cassava bread. Before full dawn the next morning I was roused by the sound of a monotonous chant, varied occasionally by a couple of most distressing grunts— La, la, caviana, ana, ani, La, la, caviana, ana, ani, |