第54章

We arrived at our hunting-ground about half-past four.The channel was broader here and presented several ramifications.It yet wanted an hour and a half to daybreak, so Raimundo,recommended me to have a nap.We both stretched ourselves on the benches of the canoe and fell asleep, letting the boat drift with the tide, which was now slack.I slept well considering the hardness of our bed, and when I awoke in the middle of a dream about home-scenes, the day was beginning to dawn.My clothes were quite wet with the dew.The birds were astir, the cicadas had begun their music, and the Urania Leilus, a strange and beautiful tailed and gilded moth, whose habits are those of a butterfly, commenced to fly in flocks over the tree-tops.Raimundo exclaimed "Clareia o dia!"--"The day brightens!"The change was rapid: the sky in the east assumed suddenly the loveliest azure colour, across which streaks of thin white clouds were painted.It is at such moments as this when one feels how beautiful our earth truly is! The channel on whose waters our little boat was floating was about two hundred yards wide; others branched off right and left, surrounding the group of lonely islands which terminate the land of Carnapijo.The forest on all sides formed a lofty hedge without a break; below, it was fringed with mangrove bushes, whose small foliage contrasted with the large glossy leaves of the taller trees, or the feather and fan-shaped fronds of palms.

Being now arrived at our destination, Raimundo turned up his trousers and shirt-sleeves, took his long hunting-knife, and leapt ashore with the dogs.He had to cut a gap in order to enter the forest.We expected to find Pacas and Cutias; and the method adopted to secure them was this: at the present early hour they would be seen feeding on fallen fruits, but would quickly, on hearing a noise, betake themselves to their burrows; Raimundo was then to turn them out by means of the dogs, and Joaquim and Iwere to remain in the boat with our guns, ready to shoot all that came to the edge of the stream--the habits of both animals, when hard-pressed, being to take to the water.We had not long to wait.The first arrival was a Paca, a reddish, nearly tail-less rodent, spotted with white on the sides, and intermediate in size and appearance between a hog and a hare.My first shot did not take effect; the animal dived into the water and did not reappear.A second was brought down by my companion as it was rambling about under the mangrove bushes.A Cutia next appeared:

this is also a rodent, about one-third the size of the Paca; it swims, but does not dive, and I was fortunate enough to shoot it.

We obtained in this way two more Pacas and another Cutia.All the time the dogs were yelping in the forest.

Shortly afterwards Raimundo made his appearance, and told us to paddle to the other side of the island.Arrived there, we landed and prepared for breakfast.It was a pretty spot--a clean, white, sandy beach beneath the shade of wide-spreading trees.Joaquim made a fire.He first scraped fine shavings from the midrib of a Bacaba palm-leaf; these he piled into a little heap in a dry place, and then struck a light in his bamboo tinderbox with a piece of an old file and a flint, the tinder being a felt-like substance manufactured by an ant (Polyrhachis bispinosus).By gentle blowing, the shavings ignited, dry sticks were piled on them, and a good fire soon resulted.He then singed and prepared the cutia, finishing by running a spit through the body and fixing one end in the ground in a slanting position over the fire.We had brought with us a bag of farinha and a cup containing a lemon, a dozen or two of fiery red peppers, and a few spoonsful of salt.We breakfasted heartily when our cutia was roasted, and washed the meal down with a calabash full of the pure water of the river.

After breakfast the dogs found another cutia, which was hidden in its burrow two or three feet beneath the roots of a large tree, and it took Raimundo nearly an hour to disinter it.Soon afterwards we left this place, crossed the channel, and, paddling past two islands, obtained a glimpse of the broad river between them, with a long sandy spit, on which stood several scarlet ibises and snow-white egrets.One of the islands was low and sandy, and half of it was covered with gigantic arum-trees, the often-mentioned Caladium arborescens, which presented a strange sight.Most people are acquainted with the little British species, Arum maculatum, which grows in hedge-bottoms, and many, doubtless, have admired the larger kinds grown in hothouses; they can therefore form some idea of a forest of arums.On this islet the woody stems of the plants near the bottom were eight to ten inches in diameter, and the trees were twelve to fifteen feet high-- all growing together in such a manner that there was just room for a man to walk freely between them.There was a canoe inshore, with a man and a woman-- the man, who was hooting with all his might, told us in passing that his son was lost in the "aningal" (arum-grove).He had strayed while walking ashore, and the father had now been an hour waiting for him in vain.

About one o'clock we again stopped at the mouth of a little creek.It was now intensely hot.Raimundo said deer were found here; so he borrowed my gun, as being a more effective weapon than the wretched arms called Lazarinos, which he, in common with all the native hunters, used, and which sell at Para for seven or eight shillings apiece.Raimundo and Joaquim now stripped themselves quite naked, and started off in different directions through the forest, going naked in order to move with less noise over the carpet of dead leaves, among which they stepped so stealthily that not the slightest rustle could be heard.The dogs remained in the canoe, in the neighbourhood of which I employed myself two hours entomologising.At the end of that time my two companions returned, having met with no game whatever.