Judged by some of the pictures in books purporting to give accounts of the South American Indians, the photograph adjoining (Plate VIII.) would represent an Indian chieftain decked in his best to welcome the newly-arrived traveller, instead of what it is—merely a group of my escort and carriers tricked out in the rag, tag, and bobtail array they deemed due to my dignity and their own. Far different is the actual scene when the Indian homestead is approached and one meets these sons of the forest—be they Boro, Witoto, or others—in their native haunts and natural garb, unaffected by “civilised” influences. From the shadow of the interior will stalk the chief, accompanied by his escort of warriors, all naked, but for a strip of bark—cloth about the loins. Round the neck of the chief is a necklace of jaguar teeth, in his hand a broadsword of iron-wood ; the men with him are destitute of feathers or ornaments, but each holds poised in his left hand a bunch of throwing javelins.

It is regrettable that returning explorers have deemed it a necessary concession to unscientific prejudice to illustrate the natives of the Amazons in clothing or drapery that is wholly foreign to their custom and to their thought. The hypocrisy was more common before the uncompromising days of photography, but the effect of the old woodcuts and engravings is to give an entirely wrong impression of the appearance of the Indian in his own haunts.