.. ever new and beautiful, strange and even mysterious," so that he
could "hardly recall them without a thrill of admiration and wonder."
But "the most unexpected sensation of surprise and delight was my first
meeting and living with man in a state of nature--with absolute
uncontaminated savages!... and the surprise of it was that I did not
expect to be at all so surprised.... These true wild Indians of the
Uaupes ... had nothing that we call clothes; they had peculiar
ornaments, tribal marks, etc.; they all carried tools or weapons of
their own manufacture.... But more than all, their whole aspect and
manner was different--they were all going about their own work or
pleasure, which had nothing to do with white men or their ways; they
walked with the free step of the independent forest-dweller, and, except
the few that were known to my companion, paid no attention whatever to
us, mere strangers of an alien race! In every detail they were original
and self-sustaining as are the wild animals of the forest, absolutely
independent of civilisation.... I could not have believed that there
would have been so much difference in the aspect of the same people in
their native state and when living under European supervision.
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