Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/201

 iSSL] ARRIVAL AT JA VITA. 171

here, deadly serpents were plentiful, and at every step I almost expected to feel a cold, gliding body under my feet, or deadly fangs in my leg. Through the darkness I gazed, expecting momentarily to encounter the glaring eyes of a jaguar, or to hear his low growl in the thicket. But to turn back or to stop were alike useless : I knew that we could not be very far from the village, and so pressed on, with a vague confidence that after all nothing disagreeable would happen, and that the next day I should only laugh at my fears overnight. Still the sharp fangs of the dried snake's head at Pimichin would come across my memory, and many a tale of the fierceness and cunning of the jaguar were not to be forgotten. At length we came to the clearing I had reached two days before, and I now knew that we had but a short distance to go. There were, however, several small streams to cross. Suddenly we would step into water, which we felt but could not see, and then had to find the narrow bridge crossing it. Of the length of the bridge, its height above the water, or the depth of the stream, we were entirely ignorant ; and to walk along a trunk four inches wide under such circumstances, was rather a nervous matter. We proceeded, placing one foot before the other, and balancing steadily, till we again felt ourselves on firm ground. On one or two occasions I lost my balance, but it was luckily only a foot or two to the ground and water below, though if it had been twenty it would have been all the same. Some half dozen of brooks and bridges like this had to be passed, and several little up and downs in the road, till at length, emerging from the pitchy shade upon an open space, we saw twinkling lights, which told us the village was before us.

In about a quarter of an hour more we reached it, and, knocking at a door, asked where the Commissario lived. We were directed to a house on the other side of the square, where an old man conducted us to the " Casa de nagao " (a shed with a door), in which were all my goods. On asking him if he could furnish me something for supper, he gave us some smoked turtles' eggs and a piece of salt fish, and then left us. We soon made a fire with some sticks we found, roasted our fish, and made a supper with the eggs and some farinha ; I then hung up my hammock, and my companion lay on the*' ground by the side of the fire ; and I slept well, undisturbed by dreams of snakes or jaguars.