resently a man came over
and looked at me. I did not understand where I was, but thought that
I, finally, had gone mad. I fell asleep again. The next time I woke
up I saw an old woman leaning over me and holding in her hand a gourd
containing some chicken-broth which I swallowed slowly, not feeling
the cravings of hunger, in fact not knowing whether I was dead or
alive. The old woman had a peculiar piece of wood through her lip
and looked very unreal to me, and I soon fell asleep again.

On the fifth day, so I learned later, I began to feel my senses
return, my fever commenced to abate, and I was able to grasp the
fact that I had crawled into the _maloca_, or communal village,
of the Mangeromas. I was as weak as a kitten, and, indeed, it has
been a marvel to me ever since that I succeeded at all in coming
out of the Shadow. The savages, by tender care, with strengthening
drinks prepared in their own primitive method, wrought the miracle,
and returned to life a man who was as near death as any one could be,
and not complete the transition. They fed me at regular intervals,
thus checking my sickness, and when I could make out their meaning,
I understood that I could stay with them as long as I desired.

Luckily I had kept my spectacles on my nose (they were the kind that
fasten back of the ears) during the previous hardships, and I found
these sticking in their position when I awoke. My khaki coat was on the
ground under my hammock, and the first thing was to ascertain if the
precious contents of its large pockets had been disturbed, but I found
everything safe. The exposed plates were there in their closed boxes,
the gold dust was also there and mocked me with its yellow glare,
and my hypodermic outfit was intact and was used without delay, much
to the astonishment of some of the men, standing around my hammock.

When my head was clear and strong enough to raise, I turned and began
my first visual exploration of my immediate surroundings. The big room
I found to be a colossal house, forty feet high and one hundred and
fifty feet in diameter, thatched with palm-leaves and with sides formed
of the stems of the _pachiuba_ tree. It was the communal residence of
this entire tribe, consisting, as I learned later, of two hundred and
fifty-eight souls. A single door and a circular opening in the roof
were the only apertures of this enormous structure. The door was very
low, not more than four feet, so that it was necessary to