Arthur O. Friel

“ Because of that black brand, he now roams like a caged tigre from end to end and from side to side of that Parima upland which has become his prison, and in which walks no other white man except, at times, Loco León. It is a huge outdoor prison, to be sure—hundreds of miles long and wide—but still a prison; for that blackened skin and the cancered mind it has given him will hold him there forever.
How he lives, what he does, where he goes, are questions which white men may ask but which receive no answer; for the mouths of the Maquiritares, who alone know, are shut. ”

“ They take the bullets and go, and that is the end of them. A few men have tried to follow them and find out where the gold comes from, but those men have never come back—except one who floated down the river with his head split. So nobody follows them now. The gold-hunters of the Cuyuni call them “The Thirty Gang.”
Now, I know that the Maquiritares have no rifles; their few guns all are long-muzzle-loading shotguns of very weak power, which they get from the Macusi. ”

“ At times there appears on the river Cuyuni, which flows from our Venezuela into Guayana Inglesa, and on which men hunt gold and diamonds, a small band of Maquiritares. They are not always the same ones, but they bring always the same things: small hide bags and a cartridge shell. The bags hold gold, in dust and nuggets. The men will trade this gold for only one thing—cartridges. And those cartridges must be of the same size as the shell they bring. That size is caliber .30.
They tell no men whence they come, or where they get the gold, or what they do with the cartridges. ”