The Survivors Of A Small
Hamlet, At The Foot Of Morambala, Were In A State Of Starvation,
Having Lost Their Food By One Of His Marauding Parties.
The women
were in the fields collecting insects, roots, wild fruits, and
whatever could be eaten, in order to drag on their lives, if
possible, till the next crop should be ripe.
Two canoes passed us,
that had been robbed by Mariano's band of everything they had in
them; the owners were gathering palm-nuts for their subsistence.
They wore palm-leaf aprons, as the robbers had stripped them of their
clothing and ornaments. Dead bodies floated past us daily, and in
the mornings the paddles had to be cleared of corpses, caught by the
floats during the night. For scores of miles the entire population
of the valley was swept away by this scourge Mariano, who is again,
as he was before, the great Portuguese slave-agent. It made the
heart ache to see the widespread desolation; the river-banks, once so
populous, all silent; the villages burned down, and an oppressive
stillness reigning where formerly crowds of eager sellers appeared
with the various products of their industry. Here and there might be
seen on the bank a small dreary deserted shed, where had sat, day
after day, a starving fisherman, until the rising waters drove the
fish from their wonted haunts, and left him to die. Tingane had been
defeated; his people had been killed, kidnapped, and forced to flee
from their villages.
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