Arthur O. Friel

“ It’s like a beautiful woman—hits you hard at first, but after you’ve seen her awhile she gets to be the same old stuff all the time, and you’ve got to ramble on and find something new. Probably after I stayed here awhile and had all the fun I could I’d never want to see the place again. Well, let’s go.”
So we moved on.
Late that day we made camp, as usual, at the edge of a belt of woods, where we could hang our hammocks from trees and find plenty of wood for cooking. The Maquiritares and two of the Macos went into the forest to kill birds or beasts for the night meal, as they did each day. ”

“ I agreed. “Beautiful to the eye, comfortable to the body, rich in game, yet inhabited only by the tigre and the danta and such things. No man lives here. The Maquiritares are men of the forest, and live in the rain-swept mountains to the east.” ”

“ I confessed. “The Maquiritares are a clean people. I will ask later on.”
When we had eaten and the Indians were hanging around us in their hammocks—the newcomers had brought their nets with them—I talked through the mouths of the Spanish-speaking Maquiritares. First, knowing that cerbatana means “blow-gun,” I asked why the caño of the black men was so named. They said it was because there grew both the chusti cane used for the bore of the blow-guns and the maui wood used for the outer case, so it was a fine place to make cerbatanas. Did many people live there? ”

“ White suddenly turned his back to them.
“Savages!” he said. “Absolute savages. Imagine these men deliberately making themselves hideous for life like that! All for some fool Carib idea, of course. Think they’re making themselves invisible to enemies, maybe, or something of the sort. I’d rather die by slow torture than do such a thing to myself. I don’t want to look at ’em any more. Br-r-r! Good night!”
“Buen’ noche’,” I answered. And no more was said.
For a time I lay wondering about those blackened skins, and I thought of a number of things which later were to come back to me. ”