happened to be in vogue fifty years ago;
and their new hosts were in their eyes immortal souls like themselves,
"captivated by the devil at his will," lost there in the pathless
forests, likely to be lost hereafter.

And certainly facts seemed to bear out their old-fashioned theories;
although these Indians had sunk by no means so low as the Guahibas whom
they had met upon the lower waters of the same river.

They beheld, on landing, a scattered village of palm-leaf sheds, under
which, as usual, the hammocks were slung from tree to tree. Here
and there, in openings in the forest, patches of cassava and indigo
appeared; and there was a look of neatness and comfort about the little
settlement superior to the average.

But now for the signs of the evil spirit. Certainly it was no good
spirit who had inspired them with the art of music; or else (as Cary
said) Apollo and Mercury (if they ever visited America) had played their
forefathers a shabby trick, and put them off with very poor instruments,
and still poorer taste. For on either side of the landing-place were
arranged four or five stout fellows, each with a tall drum, or long
earthen trumpet, swelling out in the course of its length into several
hollow balls from which arose, the moment the strangers set foot on
shore, so deafening a cacophony of howls, and groans, and thumps, as
fully to justify Yeo's remark, "They are calling upon their devil, sir."
To which Cary answered, with some show of reason, that "they were the
less likely to be disappointed, for none but Sir Urian would ever come
to listen to such a noise."

"And you mark, sirs," said Yeo, "there's some feast or sacrifice toward.
I'm not overconfident of them yet."

"Nonsense!" said Amyas, "we could kill every soul of them in
half-an-hour, and they know that as well as we."

But some great demonstration was plainly toward; for the children of the
forest were arrayed in two lines, right and left of the open space, the
men in front, and the women behind; and all bedizened, to the best of
their power, with arnotto, indigo, and feathers.

Next, with a hideous yell, leapt into the centre of the space a
personage who certainly could not have complained if any one had taken
him for the devil, for he had dressed himself up carefully for that very
intent, in a jaguar-skin with a long tail, grinning teeth, a pair of
horns, a plume of black and yellow feathers, and a huge rattle.

"Here's the Piache, the rascal