f their features was
increased by the rage that contorted them. Their large mouths, with
projecting teeth, resembled the jaw of a wild beast. They deafened me
with their yells.... I did not lose my head, but pretending to feel
perfectly assured, I seated myself on a stone close at hand.... The
gestures of the savages left no doubt of their intentions; with their
knives they simulated the action of cutting my throat, with their teeth
they seemed to rend my arms, and they moved up and down their jawbones
as if my flesh were already in their mouths.... Rising, I went straight
to the nearest man, and striking him familiarly on the shoulder, I said,
with a smile, half in Malay and half in Battah, 'Come, come, you will
never have the heart to kill and eat a woman, and an old woman like me,
whose skin is harder than leather!'" A roar of laughter greeted this
courageous speech, and the speaker was immediately received into the
friendship of her savage auditors, who overwhelmed her with marks of
goodwill and admiration.

Having "looked in" at Banda and Amboyna, Madame Pfeiffer quitted the
Moluccas, and having obtained a gratuitous passage across the Pacific,
sailed for California. On the 29th of September, 1853, she arrived at
San Francisco. At the end of the year she sailed for Callao, the port of
Lima, with the design of crossing the Andes, and pushing eastward,
through the interior of South America, to the Brazilian coast. A
revolution in Peru compelled her, however, to change her course, and she
made her way to Ecuador, which served as a starting-point for her ascent
of the Cordilleras. After witnessing an eruption of the volcano of
Cotopaxi, she retraced her steps to the West. In the neighbourhood of
Guayaquil she had two very narrow escapes--one by a fall from her mule,
and another by accidentally falling into the river Guaya, which swarms
with alligators. In no part of the world did she meet with so little
sympathy or so much discourtesy as in Spanish America, and she was
heartily glad to set sail for Panama.

Crossing the Isthmus towards the close of May, 1854, she sailed for New
Orleans. Thence she ascended the majestic but muddy Mississippi to
Napoleon, and the Arkansas to Fort Smith. A severe attack of fever
detained her for several days. On recovering her strength she travelled
to St. Louis, the Falls of St. Anthony, Chicago--which was then
beginning to justify its claim to the title of "Queen of the West"--and
the