Birds,
too, were strangely abundant; and altogether this struck me as
being the richest hunting-ground I had seen, and it astonished me
to think that the Indians of the village did not appear to visit
it.
On my return in the afternoon I gave an enthusiastic account of
my day's ramble, speaking not of the things that had moved my
soul, but only of those which move the Guayana Indian's soul--the
animal food he craves, and which, one would imagine, Nature would
prefer him to do without, so hard he finds it to wrest a
sufficiency from her. To my surprise they shook their heads and
looked troubled at what I said; and finally my host informed me
that the wood I had been in was a dangerous place; that if they
went there to hunt, a great injury would be done to them; and he
finished by advising me not to visit it again.
I began to understand from their looks and the old man's vague
words that their fear of the wood was superstitious. If
dangerous creatures had existed there tigers, or camoodis, or
solitary murderous savages--they would have said so; but when I
pressed them with questions they could only repeat that
"something bad" existed in the place, that animals were abundant
there because no Indian who valued his life dared venture into
it.
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