it up afterwards in favour of quilted
cotton, but before they did so how hot they must have felt! We can fancy
the sentry standing exposed to the full blaze of the sun, his helmet and
breastplate burning hot and his woollen underclothing saturated with
perspiration. Then there would be the open boat ascending a river. The
occupants dared not row in the shade for fear of cannibals shooting at
them with poisoned arrows from the thicket, and out in the river they
must have felt as if in a furnace. Even with our white clothing and
light hats a long journey in an open boat when the sun is high often
ends in fever, and almost invariably in a headache. The neck and backs
of the hands get blistered, and become sore, the glare on the water
dazzles the eye, and we feel faint.

In one of the accounts of such a boating expedition on a river in Guiana
we read of the men finding some yellow plums floating on the water, and
of their being much refreshed by them. We also have come across these
hog-plums when almost exhausted by a long exposure on the open river,
and when even our negro steersman was nodding as he held the paddle.
Suddenly we came to our destination, the mouth of a creek, and were
under an arcade of vegetation, beneath which the plums floated on the
cool dark water.

The men of the sixteenth century must have been stronger than ourselves,
or they could hardly have endured such pain and privation. They lay down
on the bare earth night after night, and on board ship went to sleep on
naked planks. As they could endure pain and discomfort, so also could
they inflict it on others. The rough seamen learnt to bear hardships
which blunted their feelings of humanity and made them inclined to
torture others. When in the hands of the cannibals they were almost as
stoical as the savage himself, their ruling passion being a desire for
revenge. If cruelly treated by one tribe they retaliated on others; in
the same way the Indians killed one party of Spaniards to avenge the
insults of their countrymen. This led to a great deal of trouble and
made the voyages of the treasure-seekers dangerous to all. However free
from blame one party might be, they were liable to suffer for previous
wrong-doings and they in turn left behind them injuries to be avenged
on the next comers.

[Illustration: A GUIANA RIVER. THE TUMATAMARI FALLS.]

And then, how very audacious these adventurers were! Alonzo de Ojeda was
perhaps the most striking example