him. With him it was work, and nothing more.

To a boy used to paddling our own style of light canoes, the paddling methods of those black men seemed the most awkward in the world. Yet they “got there,” and I doubt if any crew of white men, without years of practice, could have propelled the heavy craft as easily as they. Their method was to bend forward, holding the paddle horizontally and sliding it along the gunwale with a loud scraping noise, then suddenly lean over sidewise and dig the paddle viciously into the water, giving a sturdy backward tug with it, still scraping the paddle against the gunwales. At the end of this stroke they returned the paddle to the horizontal position with a loud thumping noise, sat up straight, then leaned forward and repeated the stroke.

They kept perfect time. No varsity crew boys ever worked in unison at the oars any better, and they were forever singing. It didn’t matter whether they were paddling twenty feet across a narrow inlet or making an all day pull upstream, they always had music with their paddling.

They were crude songs, partly English that was scarcely understandable, partly native dialect and partly something else that may have been handed down to them from their ancestors who were captured in Africa so many generations ago and brought over by the early Dutch and English slave traders.

If the water was smooth and open, with no current, our twenty paddle men would sing as softly as the whispering of a summer breeze. But if there was a current they would sing louder. And the more difficult the paddling, the louder they would sing. In boiling rapids where it took every ounce of their strength and they had to take quick, short strokes to keep going, their voices arose to an almost howling crescendo.

Soon Bartica was lost to view around a point of land. For nearly six months we were to see no more civilization than Indian villages here and there, hidden far back from the river bank. As we swung up into the broad river where the current became strong enough to cause the paddlers to use a little extra “elbow grease” they broke into a queer song which I heard so many times after that, that it still rings in my ears. I cannot translate it. I do not know what it means, but imagine that it is some sort of love song to some dusky “Lena.” This is the way it sounds:

We came in sight of another boat. On the Mazaruni every boat one sees that is going in the same direction is an “adversary” and every paddler believes that it is his duty to pass it. Then you see some fancy paddle strokes, so weird and unusual and grotesque that they are difficult to describe. One would think that they were trying more to awe each other with their paddle gesticulations than with speed. How they race upstream, each determined to get and keep the lead! The captain told me that many lives were lost at rapids because the racing paddlers would give thought only to getting into the narrow passes first and were frequently crashed upon the rocks and overturned.

Not far from the little town is Kalacoon, the biological station where at various times Professor Beebe and the other scientists take up their intimate studies of tropical life. This station is on a high hill where the Mazaruni and Essequibo Rivers join. It was at this place that Colonel Roosevelt stopped when he visited the colony.

From this point the vegetation on both sides of the river became so dense that it seemed almost like greenish-black solid walls. No huts or signs of human life were visible at first. But finally, with sharp eyes, we got so we could detect a slight opening, a log landing at the water’s edge or a faint suggestion of a thatched hut in back of the shore row of trees.

It would have been fearfully monotonous but for the fact that Lewis and I devised a new sort of game—to see which one could detect the greater number of signs of human habitation. Our natives, with sharper eyes, would verify our discoveries. All this was in the Boviander section, where the natives come down from “’Bove yonder.” Just before nightfall we reached the foot of the first falls and landed to make camp for the night.

Before the big boat touched land Lewis and I had leaped ashore to stretch our legs. The blacks jumped out into the shoal water and swung the boat into place and made it fast. Jimmy began taking ashore our shelters. Suddenly he began a frantic search and in despair cried:

“No cookum!”

“You bet you ‘cookum,’” I shouted, “I’m starved.”

“No cookum! No cookum!” repeated the distracted boy, mournfully.

Lewis investigated and came back with a long face.

“We did a bright thing,” he muttered.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Left all of our cooking outfit down at the village!”

“There’s two things to do, go without them or go back and get them,” I suggested.

“Can’t go without ’em,” said Lewis.

“Then there’s one thing to do,” I laughed. I was not to be filled with gloom. The prospects of a great adventure were far too joyous. Our landing was at the last settlement of the Bovianders. These half Dutch, half Negro natives speak fairly understandable English. I scouted around amongst them, found a good canoe, took three black men and set out downriver. The two paddlers were sturdy boys and, going down with the current, they fairly made that old canoe whizz.

It was midnight when we got back to the village. Everyone was asleep except the dogs. They greeted us with howls, and many of the men turned out. Perhaps they thought they were to be attacked by some savage tribe. But we soon explained, got our cooking outfit, lashed it carefully to the canoe and started back.

CHAPTER III
A FIRE BOAT AND A NATIVE WEDDING

THERE was no speeding up against the current, although the light canoe made better progress than our heavy boats. And then I heard a sound that made me think I was back home. It was the “put—put—put” of a gasoline motor. I was amazed.

“Fire boat,” grunted one of the black men.

I hailed it. A Dutchman answered and came over to us. It was an ordinary native boat to which he had attached one of those portable motors which may be put on any boat. He was going upstream and gladly took us in tow, much to my delight. Otherwise I would not have reached camp until daylight, and the tropical nights (as I afterward learned) are not the sort of nights for anyone, especially a white man, to be out in, because of the terrible dampness and mists as well as insect pests.

As we chugged along upriver, my three blacks sitting back and grinning at their luck because they would be paid just the same for the trip although they escaped all of the hard work, there suddenly came across the black water the most weird sounds imaginable.

There were shrieks and falsetto laughter, squeaks and tinkles and shrill pipings and heavy stamping. I