Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/184

 154 - TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. {November,

be formed were the granite in a plastic state forced up against hard angular masses.

On reaching the cave I immediately skinned my prize before it was dark, and we then got our supper. No more "gallos" were brought in that day. The fires were made up, the pork put to smoke over them, and around me were thirteen naked Indians, talking in unknown tongues. Two only could speak a little Portuguese, and with them I conversed, answering their various questions about where iron came from, and how calico was made, and if paper grew in my country, and if we had much mandiocca and plantains ; and they were greatly astonished to hear that all were white men there, and could not imagine how white men could work, or how there could be a country without forest. They would ask strange questions about where the wind came from, and the rain, and how the sun and moon got back to their places again after disappearing from us ; and when I had tried to satisfy them on these points, they would tell me forest tales of jaguars and pumas, and of the fierce wild hogs, and of the dreadful curupurf, the demon of the woods, and of the wild man with a long tail, found far in the centre of the forest. They told me also a curious tale about the tapir, which, however, others have assured me is not true.

The tapir, they say, has a peculiar fancy for dropping his dung only in the water, and they never find it except in brooks and springs, though it is so large and abundant that it could not be overlooked in the forest. If there is no water to be found, the animal makes a rough basket of leaves and carries it to the nearest stream, and there deposits it. The Indians' tale goes, that one tapir met another in the forest with a basket in his mouth. " What have you in your basket ? " said the one. " Fruit," answered the other. " Let me have some," said the first. " I won't," said the other ; upon which the first tapir pulled the basket from the other's mouth, broke it open, and on seeing the contents both turned tail, quite ashamed of themselves, ran away in opposite directions, and never came near the spot again all their lives.

With such conversation we passed the time till we fell asleep. We rose with the earliest dawn, for the naked Indian feels the chill morning air, and gets up early to renew his fire, and make some mingau to warm himself. Having no coffee, I had