g new
dialects, which had increased by practice until it was almost like
intuition, I should have fared badly after leaving the Maquiritari
tribe. As it was, I had two or three very narrow escapes.

To return from this digression. I looked at last on the famous Parahuari
mountains, which, I was greatly surprised to find, were after all
nothing but hills, and not very high ones. This, however, did not
impress me. The very fact that Parahuari possessed no imposing feature
in its scenery seemed rather to prove that it must be rich in gold: how
else could its name and the fame of its treasures be familiar to people
dwelling so far away as the Cunucumana?

But there was no gold. I searched through the whole range, which was
about seven leagues long, and visited the villages, where I talked much
with the Indians, interrogating them, and they had no necklets of
gold, nor gold in any form; nor had they ever heard of its presence in
Parahuari or in any other place known to them.

The very last village where I spoke on the subject of my quest, albeit
now without hope, was about a league from the western extremity of the
range, in the midst of a high broken country of forest and savannah and
many swift streams; near one of these, called the Curicay, the village
stood, among low scattered trees--a large building, in which all the
people, numbering eighteen, passed most of their time when not hunting,
with two smaller buildings attached to it. The head, or chief, Runi by
name, was about fifty years old, a taciturn, finely formed, and somewhat
dignified savage, who was either of a sullen disposition or not well
pleased at the intrusion of a white man. And for a time I made no
attempt to conciliate him. What profit was there in it at all? Even
that light mask, which I had worn so long and with such good effect,
incommoded me now: I would cast it aside and be myself--silent and
sullen as my barbarous host. If any malignant purpose was taking form
in his mind, let it, and let him do his worst; for when failure first
stares a man in the face, it has so dark and repellent a look that not
anything that can be added can make him more miserable; nor has he any
apprehension. For weeks I had been searching with eager, feverish
eyes in every village, in every rocky crevice, in every noisy mountain
streamlet, for the glittering yellow dust I had travelled so far to
find. And now all my beautiful dreams--all the pleasure and power to
be--had v