necklet. This report inflamed my mind to such a degree that I
could not rest by night or day for dreaming golden dreams, and

considering how to get to that rich district, unknown to
civilized men. The Indians gravely shook their heads when I

tried to persuade them to take me. They were far enough from the
Orinoco, and Parahuari was ten, perhaps fifteen, days' journey

further on--a country unknown to them, where they had no
relations.

In spite of difficulties and delays, however, and not without
pain and some perilous adventures, I succeeded at last in

reaching the upper Orinoco, and, eventually, in crossing to the
other side. With my life in my hand I struggled on westward

through an unknown difficult country, from Indian village to
village, where at any moment I might have been murdered with

impunity for the sake of my few belongings. It is hard for me to
speak a good word for the Guayana savages; but I must now say

this of them, that they not only did me no harm when I was at
their mercy during this long journey, but they gave me shelter in

their villages, and fed me when I was hungry, and helped me on my
way when I could make no return. You must not, however, run away

with the idea that there is any sweetness in their disposition,
any humane or benevolent instincts such as are found among the

civilized nations: far from it. I regard them now, and,
fortunately for me, I regarded them then, when, as I have said, I

was at their mercy, as beasts of prey, plus a cunning or low kind
of intelligencevastly greater than that of the brute; and, for

only morality, that respect for the rights of other members of
the same family, or tribe, without which even the rudest

communities cannot hold together. How, then, could I do this
thing, and dwell and travel freely, without receiving harm, among

tribes that have no peace with and no kindly feelings towards the
stranger, in a district where the white man is rarely or never

seen? Because I knew them so well. Without that knowledge,
always available, and an extremefacility in acquiring new

dialects, which had increased by practice until it was almost
like intuition, I should have fared badly after leaving the

Maquiritari tribe. As it was, I had two or three very narrow
escapes.

To return from this digression. I looked at last on the famous
Parahuari mountains, which, I was greatly surprised to find, were

after all nothing but hills, and not very high ones. This,
however, did not impress me. The very fact that Parahuari

possessed no imposing feature in its scenery seemed rather to
prove that it must be rich in gold: how else could its name and

the fame of its treasures be familiar to people dwelling so far
away as the Cunucumana?

But there was no gold. I searched through the whole range, which
was about seven leagues long, and visited the villages, where I

talked much with the Indians, interrogating them, and they had no
necklets of gold, nor gold in any form; nor had they ever heard

of its presence in Parahuari or in any other place known to them.
The very last village where I spoke on the subject of my quest,

albeit now without hope, was about a league from the western
extremity of the range, in the midst of a high broken country of

forest and savannah and many swift streams; near one of these,
called the Curicay, the village stood, among low scattered trees-

-a large building, in which all the people, numbering eighteen,
passed most of their time when not hunting, with two smaller

buildings attached to it. The head, or chief, Runi by name, was
about fifty years old, a taciturn, finely formed, and somewhat

dignified savage, who was either of a sullendisposition or not
well pleased at the intrusion of a white man. And for a time I

made no attempt to conciliate him. What profit was there in it
at all? Even that light mask, which I had worn so long and with

such good effect, incommoded me now: I would cast it aside and be
myself--silent and sullen as my barbarous host. If any malignant

purpose was taking form in his mind, let it, and let him do his
worst; for when failure first stares a man in the face, it has so

dark and repellent a look that not anything that can be added can
make him more miserable; nor has he any apprehension. For weeks

I had been searching with eager, feverish eyes in every village,
in every rocky crevice, in every noisy mountain streamlet, for

the glittering yellow dust I had travelled so far to find. And
now all my beautiful dreams--all the pleasure and power to

be--had vanished like a mere mirage on the savannah at noon.
It was a day of despair which I spent in this place, sitting all

day indoors, for it was raining hard, immersed in my own gloomy
thoughts, pretending to doze in my seat, and out of the narrow

slits of my half-closed eyes seeing the others, also sitting or
moving about, like shadows or people in a dream; and I cared

nothing about them, and wished not to seem friendly, even for the
sake of the food they might offer me by and by.

Towards evening the rain ceased; and rising up I went out a short
distance to the neighbouring stream, where I sat on a stone and,

casting off my sandals, raved my bruised feet in the cool running
water. The western half of the sky was blue again with that

tender lucid blue seen after rain, but the leaves still glittered
with water, and the wet trunks looked almost black under the

green foliage. The rare loveliness of the scene touched and
lightened my heart. Away back in the east the hills of

Parahuari, with the level sun full on them, loomed with a strange
glory against the grey rainy clouds drawing off on that side, and

their new mystic beauty almost made me forget how these same
hills had wearied, and hurt, and mocked me. On that side, also

to the north and south, there was open forest, but to the west a
different prospect met the eye. Beyond the stream and the strip

of verdure that fringed it, and the few scattered dwarf trees
growing near its banks, spread a brown savannah sloping upwards

to a long, low, rocky ridge, beyond which rose a great solitary
hill, or rather mountain, conical in form, and clothed in forest

almost to the summit. This was the mountain Ytaioa, the chief
landmark in that district. As the sun went down over the ridge,

beyond the savannah, the whole western sky changed to a delicate
rose colour that had the appearance of rose-coloured smoke blown

there by some far off-wind, and left suspended--a thin, brilliant
veil showing through it the distant sky beyond, blue and

ethereal. Flocks of birds, a kind of troupial, were flying past
me overhead, flock succeeding flock, on their way to their

roosting-place, uttering as they flew a clear, bell-like chirp;
and there was something ethereal too in those drops of melodious

sound, which fell into my heart like raindrops falling into a
pool to mix their fresh heavenly water with the water of earth.

Doubtless into the turbid tarn of my heart some sacred drops had
fallen--from the passing birds, from that crimson disk which had

now dropped below the horizon, the darkening hills, the rose and
blue of infinite heaven, from the whole visiblecircle; and I

felt purified and had a strange sense and apprehension of a
secret innocence and spirituality in nature--a prescience of some

bourn, incalculably distant perhaps, to which we are all moving;
of a time when the heavenly rain shall have washed us clean from

all spot and blemish. This unexpected peace which I had found
now seemed to me of infinitely greater value than that yellow

metal I had missed finding, with all its possibilities. My wish
now was to rest for a season at this spot, so remote and lovely

and peaceful, where I had experienced such unusual feelings and
such a blessed disillusionment.

This was the end of my second period in Guayana: the first had
been filled with that dream of a book to win me fame in my

country, perhaps even in Europe; the second, from the time of
leaving the Queneveta mountains, with the dream of boundless

wealth--the old dream of gold in this region that has drawn so
many minds since the days of Francisco Pizarro. But to remain I

must propitiate Runi, sitting silent with gloomy brows over there
indoors; and he did not appear to me like one that might be won

with words, however flattering. It was clear to me that the time
had come to part with my one remaining valuable trinket--the