The refuse heaps of the little villages were large and piled on the edge of the bank. They were a compost of filth, sweepings of streets and huts, peelings of manioc, and often of plantains with a high heap of oyster-shells. Had I not much else to write about, an interesting chapter on these composts, and the morals, manners, and usages of the aborigines might be written. Just as Owen could prefigure an extinct mammoth of the dead ages from the view of a few bones, the history of a tribe could be developed by me out of these refuse heaps. Revelling in these fetid exhalations were representatives of many insect tribes. Columns of ants wound in and out with more exact formation than aborigines could compose themselves, flies buzz in myriads over the heaps, with the murmur of enjoyment, butterflies which would have delighted Jameson's soul swarmed exulting in their gorgeous colours, and a perfect cloud of moths hovered above all.
The villages of the Bakuti were reached on the 7th, after seven hours' slow marching and incessant cutting. I occupied a seat in the boat on this day and observed that the banks were from six to ten feet above the river on either side, that there were numerous traces of former occupation easily detected despite the luxuriance of the young forest that had grown up and usurped the space once occupied by villages and fields; that either wars or epidemics had disturbed the inhabitants twenty years ago, and that as yet only one crocodile had been seen on the Aruwimi, and only one hippo, which I took to be a sure sign that there was not much pasture in this region.
As the rowers urged the boat gently up the stream, and I heard the bill-hooks and axes carving away through bush and brake tangle and forest without which scarcely a yard of progress could be made, I regretted more than ever that I had not insisted on being allowed to carry out my own plan of having fifteen whale-boats. What toil would have been saved, and what anxiety would have been spared me.
On the 9th we gained, after another seven hours' toiling and marching, the villages of the Bakoka. Already the people began to look jaded and seedy. Skewers had penetrated the feet of several, ulcers began to attract notice by their growing virulence, many people complained of curious affections in the limbs. Stairs was slowly recovering.