Perhaps, then, upon due reflection you would draw this conclusion: that men
will always be indolent where there is no object to rouse them.
As the Indian of Guiana has no idea whatever of communicating his
intentions by writing, he has fallen upon a plan of communication sure and
simple. When two or three families have determined to come down the river
and pay you a visit, they send an Indian beforehand with a string of beads.
You take one bead off every day, and on the day that the string is beadless
they arrive at your house.
In finding their way through these pathless wilds the sun is to them what
Ariadne's clue was to Theseus. When he is on the meridian they generally
sit down, and rove onwards again as soon as he has sufficiently declined to
the west; they require no other compass. When in chase, they break a twig
on the bushes as they pass by, every three or four hundred paces, and this
often prevents them from losing their way on their return.
You will not be long in the forests of Guiana before you perceive how very
thinly they are inhabited.
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