a race, lost sight of in
the course of centuries? If the latter, would there not be some relic
left of its existence; a fragment of stone or concrete substance
inscribed with the figures of its period? Is it possible that everything
has been buried from the sight of modern man, under the rank luxuriance
of grass and bush? Or is it not I who vainly dream under the impression
of the forest's mute grandeur and the thousands of voices that to-day
awake its echoes and to-morrow leave none behind?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: In another chapter, wherein I describe the superstitions
and beliefs of the Sakais, I have spoken of the custom they have of
depositing food, tobacco, etc., on the tombs of their dead for a week
after they have been buried. Naturally everything, not devoured by beast
or insect, rots upon the spot and the seeds of the fruit find their way
into the ground. For this reason many new trees spring up in groups,
obtaining their first alimentation from the dissolution of the corpse.]

[Footnote 5: The _sikoi_ grows on high mountains and the women have to
take great pains in cleaning it before it is cooked. It is a grain
something like our millet and has good nutritive qualities.

The Sakays mix it with water and make a sort of "polenta" cooking it, as
usual, in their bamboo saucepans. It is a favourite dish with them when
eaten with monkey flesh, rats, pieces of snake, lizards, beetles and
various other insects which would be of rare entomological value to any
museum that possessed them.

Ignorant of the repugnant compound, that gave such a savoury taste to
the _sikoi_, at the beginning of my sojourn with the Sakays, I ate it
with relish after seasoning it with a little salt, an article not much
used amongst my mountain friends. But when I came to know what
ingredients gave it flavour I refused it, as kindly as I could not to
offend their susceptibilities, because my stomach rebelled against the
mess.]

CHAPTER VII.

The snares of civilized life--Faust's invocation--The dangers
of the forest--Serpents--A perilous adventure--Carnivorous
and herbivorous animals--The "sladan"--The man of the wood.

The young man who incautiously ventures into the mysterious parts of
Drury Lane--where vice and crime have a classical reputation--or strolls
through the old Latin Quarter of Paris (where some of the streets are
anything but safe to pass through), or who finds himself, for whatsoever
reason you wil