g further it may be well to note that any
assertion of the great Collector might be admitted not only as an honest
report, but also as a fact which he had verified, so far as was possible.
Dr. Johnson was not more careful to speak the whole truth and nothing but
the truth.

It was somewhere round the sources of the Amazons that Roezl sojourned for
a while in a village of those strange people whom the Spaniards call
Pintados--'painted' Indians. Their colour, in fact, is piebald--light
brown, dark brown, and a livid tint commonly described as red, in
blotches. They are seen occasionally in Guiana, more rarely in Venezuela
and Brazil. The colouring is ascribed to disease, rather because it is so
hideous and abnormal, perhaps, than for a solid reason. Roezl thought it
'natural.'

He was making his way through those endless forests by compass, with two
mestizos from Columbia who had served him on a former journey, and a negro
boy. For guides and carriers he depended on the Indians, who passed him
from settlement to settlement. It is fitting to observe here that Roezl
never carried firearms of any sort at any time--so he used to say. Of
great stature and prodigious muscle, utterly fearless, never unprepared,
happen what might, he passed forty years in such wandering as I have
outlined, and never had occasion to strike a blow. Several times he found
himself between contending factions, the armed mobs of Spanish America,
and lost everything; many times was he robbed, but never, I believe,
assaulted. Nerve and humour protected him. As for the wild Indians, I
fancy that they were overawed by his imposing appearance; and especially
by an iron hook which occupied the place of his left hand, smashed by an
accident.

This system of travelling at leisure from settlement to settlement enabled
him to pick up a few necessary words of each language, and to give warning
of his approach to the next tribe. The Pintados welcomed him in a quiet
fashion--that is, the chiefs did not object when he repaired an empty hut
and took possession. It was at the end of a long 'street,' parallel to the
river. The rude dwellings were not scattered. Each stood opposite to its
fellow across the way, and Roezl noticed a large flat stone in the middle
between every pair. Towards nightfall the Indians trooped back from their
fields; but all the women and grown girls entered at one end of the
village, the men at the other. This was curious. As they marched up,