m, or rather to
the room where my hammock was slung, and which I shared with Indian
women and children, with a cat and her family of kittens, who slept on
the edge of my mosquito-net, and made frequent inroads upon the inside,
with hens and chickens and sundry dogs, who went in and out at will. The
music and dancing, the laughter and talking outside, continued till the
small hours. Every now and then an Indian girl would come in to rest for
a while, take a nap in a hammock, and then return to the dance. When we
first arrived in South America, we could hardly have slept soundly under
such circumstances; but one soon becomes accustomed, on the Amazons, to
sleeping in rooms with mud floors and mud walls, or with no walls at
all, where rats and birds and bats rustle about in the thatch over one's
head, and all sorts of unwonted noises in the night remind you that you
are by no means the sole occupant of your apartment. This remark does
not apply to the towns, where the houses are comfortable enough; but if
you attempt to go off the beaten track, to make canoe excursions, and
see something of the forest population, you must submit to these
inconveniences. There is one thing, however, which makes it far
pleasanter to lodge in the Indian houses here than in the houses of our
poorer class at home. One is quite independent in the matter of bedding;
no one travels without his own hammock and the net which in many places
is a necessity on account of the mosquitoes. Beds and bedding are almost
unknown here; and there are none so poor as not to possess two or three
of the strong and neat twine hammocks made by the Indians themselves
from the fibres of the palm. Then the open character of their houses, as
well as the personal cleanliness of the Indians, makes the atmosphere
fresher and purer there than in the houses of our poor. However untidy
they may be in other respects, they always bathe once or twice a day, if
not oftener, and wash their clothes frequently. We have never yet
entered an Indian house where there was any disagreeable odor, unless it
might be the peculiar smell from the preparation of the mandioca in the
working-room outside, which has, at a certain stage in the process, a
slightly sour smell. We certainly could not say as much for many houses
where we have lodged when travelling in the West, or even "Down East,"
where the suspicious look of the bedding and the close air of the room
often make one doubtful about the n