g her own food; but invariably she was before us at each
resting- or camping-place.

Indian villages were seen during the journey, but only to be avoided;
and in like manner, if we caught sight of Indians travelling or camping
at a distance, we would alter our course, or conceal ourselves to escape
observation. Only on one occasion, two days after setting out, were we
compelled to speak with strangers. We were going round a hill, and all
at once came face to face with three persons travelling in an opposite
direction--two men and a woman, and, by a strange fatality, Rima at that
moment happened to be with us. We stood for some time talking to these
people, who were evidently surprised at our appearance, and wished
to learn who we were; but Nuflo, who spoke their language like one of
themselves, was too cunning to give any true answer. They, on their
side, told us that they had been to visit a relative at Chani, the name
of a river three days ahead of us, and were now returning to their own
village at Baila-baila, two days beyond Parahuari. After parting from
them Nuflo was much troubled in his mind for the rest of that day. These
people, he said, would probably rest at some Parahuari village,
where they would be sure to give a description of us, and so it might
eventually come to the knowledge of our unneighbourly neighbour Runi
that we had left Ytaioa.

Other incidents of our long and wearisome journey need not be related.
Sitting under some shady tree during the sultry hours, with Rima only
too far out of earshot, or by the nightly fire, the old man told me
little by little and with much digression, chiefly on sacred subjects,
the strange story of the girl's origin.

About seventeen years back--Nuflo had no sure method to compute time
by--when he was already verging on old age, he was one of a company
of nine men, living a kind of roving life in the very part of Guayana
through which we were now travelling; the others, much younger than
himself, were all equally offenders against the laws of Venezuela,
and fugitives from justice. Nuflo was the leader of this gang, for it
happened that he had passed a great portion of his life outside the pale
of civilization, and could talk the Indian language, and knew this part
of Guayana intimately. But according to his own account he was not in
harmony with them. They were bold, desperate men, whose evil appetites
had so far only been whetted by the crimes they had committed; wh