creep on
one's knees to enter the place, and this opening was closed at night,
that is to say, about six o'clock, by a sliding door which fitted so
snugly that I never noticed any mosquitoes or _piums_ in the dark,
cool room.

The next day I could get out of my hammock, though I could not
stand or walk without the aid of two women, who took me over to a
man I later found to be the chief of the tribe. He was well-fed,
and by his elaborate dress was distinguished from the rest of the
men. He had a very pleasant, good-natured smile, and almost constantly
displayed a row of white, sharp-filed teeth. This smile gave me some
confidence, but I very well knew that I was now living among cannibal
Indians, whose reputation in this part of the Amazon is anything but
flattering. I prepared for the new ordeal without any special fear--my
feelings seemed by this time to have been pretty well exhausted and
any appreciation of actual danger was considerably reduced as a result
of the gamut of the terrors which I had run.

I addressed the Chief in the Portuguese language, which I had learned
during my stay at Floresta headquarters, and also in Spanish but he
only shook his head; all my efforts were useless. He let me know
in a friendly manner that my hammock was to be my resting-place
and that I would not be molested. His tribe was one that occupied
an almost unknown region and had no connection with white men or
Brazilians or people near the river. I tried in the course of the
mimical conversation to make him understand that, with six companions
from a big Chief's _maloca_ (meaning Coronel da Silva and the Floresta
headquarters), I had penetrated into the woods near this mighty Chief's
_maloca_,--here I pointed at the Chief--that the men had died from
fever and I was left alone and that luckily, I had found my way to
the free men of the forest (here I made a sweeping movement with my
hands). He nodded and the audience was over. I was led back to my
hammock to dream and eat, and dream again.

Although the Chief and his men presented an appearance wholly unknown
to me, yet it did not seem to distract me at the first glance, but
as my faculties slowly returned to their former activity, I looked
at them and found them very strange figures, indeed. Every man had
two feathers inserted in the cartilage of his nose; at some distance
it appeared as if they wore moustaches. Besides this, the Chief had
a sort of feather-dress reaching half wa