We had some difficulty in finding dry wood to kindle the fires with which it is here customary to surround the bivouac, as a safeguard against the attacks of the jaguar. The air was bland and soft and the moon shone brightly. Several crocodiles approached the bank; and I have observed that fire attracts these creatures as it does our crabs and many other aquatic animals. The oars of our boats were fixed upright in the ground, to support our hammocks. Deep stillness prevailed, only broken at intervals by the blowing of the fresh-water dolphins, which are peculiar to the river network of the Orinoco.

After eleven o'clock such a noise began in the contiguous forest, that for the remainder of the night all sleep was impossible. The wild cries of animals rang through the woods. Among the many voices which resounded together, the Indians could only recognize those which, after short pauses, were heard singly. There was the monotonous, plaintive cry of the howling monkeys, the whining, flute-like notes of the small sapajous, the grunting murmur of the striped nocturnal ape, the fitful roar of the great tiger, the cougar, or maneless American lion, the peccary, the sloth, and a host of parrots, parraquas, and other pheasant-like birds. Whenever the tigers approached the edge of the forest, our dog, who before had barked incessantly, came howling to seek protection under the hammocks. Sometimes the cry of the tiger resounded from the branches of a tree, and was always then accompanied by the plaintive, piping tones of the apes, who were endeavoring to escape from the unwonted pursuit.

If one asks the Indians why such a continuous noise is heard on certain nights, they answer, with a smile, that "the animals are rejoicing in the beautiful moonlight, and celebrating the return of the full moon." To me the scene appeared rather to be owing to an accidental, long-continued, and gradually increasing conflict among the animals. Thus, for instance, the jaguar will pursue the peccaries and the tapirs, which, densely crowded together, burst through the barrier of tree-like shrubs which opposes their flight. Ter

rified at the confusion, the monkeys on the tops of the trees join their cries with those of the larger animals. This arouses the tribes of birds who built their nests in communities, and suddenly the whole animal world is in a state of commotion. Further experience taught us that it was by no means always the festival of moonlight that disturbed the stillness of the forest; for we observed that the voices were loudest during violent storms of rain, or when the thunder echoed and the lightning flashed through the depths of the wood. The good-natured Franciscan monk who accompanied us through the cataracts of Apures and Maypures to San Carlos, on the Rio Negro, and to the Brazilian frontier, used to say, when apprehensive of a storm at night, "May Heaven grant a quiet night both to us and to the wild beasts of the forest!"'

The new canoe intended for us was, like all Indian boats, a trunk of a tree hollowed out partly by the hatchet and partly by fire. It was forty feet long and three broad. Three persons could not sit in it side by side. These canoes are so crank, and they require, from their instability, a cargo so equally distributed, that when you want to rise for an instant you must warn the rowers to lean to the opposite side. Without this precaution the water would necessarily enter the side pressed down. It is difficult to form an idea of the inconveniences that are suffered in such wretched vessels. To gain something in breadth, a sort of lattice-work had been constructed on the stern with branches of trees that extended on each side beyond the gunwale. Unfortunately, the toldo, or roof of leaves, that covered this latticework, was so low that we were obliged to lie down, without seeing anything, or, if seated, to sit nearly double. necessity of carrying the canoe across the rapids, and even from one river to another, and the fear of giving too much hold to the wind, by making the toldo higher, render this construction necessary for vessels that go up toward the Rio Negro. The toldo was intended to cover four persons, lying on the deck or lattice-work of brush-wood; but our legs reached far beyond it, and when it rained half our bodies

The

were wet.

Our couches consisted of ox-hides or tiger-skins spread upon branches of trees, which were painfully felt through so thin a covering. The fore part of the boat was filled with Indian rowers, furnished with paddles, three feet long, in the form of spoons. They were all naked, seated two by two, and they kept time in rowing with a surprising uniformity, singing songs of a sad and monotonous charac

ter.

The small cages containing our birds and our monkeys the number of which augmented as we advancedwere hung some to the toldo and others to the bow of the boat. This was our traveling menagerie. Every night, when we established our watch, our collection of animals and our instruments occupied the center; around these were placed, first, our hammocks, then the hammocks of the Indians; and on the outside were the fires, which are thought indispensable against the attacks of the jaguar. About sunrise the monkeys in our cages answered the cries of the monkeys of the forest.

In a canoe not three feet wide, and so encumbered, there remained no other place for the dried plants, trunks, sextant, a dipping needle, and the meteorological instruments, than the space below the lattice-work of branches, on which we were compelled to remain stretched the greater part of the day. If we wished to take the least object out of a trunk, or to use an instrument, it was necessary to row ashore and land. To these inconveniences were joined the torment of the mosquitoes which swarmed under the toldo, and the heat radiated from the leaves of the palm-trees, the upper surface of which was continually exposed to the solar rays. We attempted every instant, but always without success, to amend our situation. While one of us hid himself under a sheet to ward off the insects, the other insisted on having green wood lighted beneath the toldo, in the hope of driving away the mosquitoes by the smoke. The painful sensations of the eyes, and the increase of heat, already stifling, rendered both these contrivances alike impracticable. With some gayety of temper, with feelings of mutual good-will, and with a vivid taste for the majestic grandeur