Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/111

 proceeded on our journey, and soon passed the last house, and entered upon the wild, unbroken and uninhabited virgin forest. The stream was very narrow and very winding, running with great rapidity round the bends, and often much obstructed by bushes and fallen trees. ‘The branches almost met overhead, and it was as dark and gloomy and silent as can be imagined. In these sombre shades a flower was scarcely ever to be found. A few of the large blue butterflies (Morphos) were occasionally seen flitting over the water or seated upon a leaf on the banks, and numerous green-backed kingfishers darted along before us. Early in the afternoon we found a little cleared place where hunters were accustomed to stay, and here we hung up our hammocks, lit our fire, and prepared to pass the night. After an excellent supper and some coffee, I lay down in my hammock, gazing up through the leafy canopy overhead, to the skies spangled with brightly shining stars, from which the fireflies, flitting among the foliage, could often hardly be distinguished. They were a species of Pyrophorus, larger than any I had seen in Para. ‘They seemed attracted by the fire, to which they came in numbers; by moving one over the lines of a newspaper I was enabled easily to read it. ‘The Indians amused themselves by recounting their hunting adventures, their escapes from jaguars and serpents, or of their being lost in the forest. One told how he had been lost for ten days, and all that time had eaten nothing, for he had no farinha, and though he could have killed game he would not eat it alone, and seemed quite surprised that I should think him capable of such an action, though I should certainly have imagined a week’s fast would have overcome any scruples of that sort.

The next day the Indians went hunting, proposing to return early in the afternoon to proceed on, and I searched the woods after insects; but in these gloomy forests, and without any paths along which I could walk with confidence, I met with little success. In the afternoon some of them returned with two trumpeters (Psophia viridis) and a monkey, which I skinned; but as one Indian did not arrive till late, we could not continue our voyage till the next day. ‘This night we were not so fortunate as the last, for just about dusk it began to rain, and our canoes were so small and so loaded with articles that must be kept dry, that we had little chance of making ourselves comfortable in them. I managed to crowd in somehow, terribly