Page:Enterprise and Adventure.djvu/270

242 sloping to the water. Just within the forest on this bank they cleared a place of brushwood, suspended the hammocks from the trees, and then picked up enough of decayed wood for fuel.

They now baited a shark-hook with a large fish, and put it upon a board, which they had brought on purpose. This board was carried out in the canoe, about forty yards into the river. By means of a string, long enough to reach the bottom of the river, and at the end of which string was fastened a stone, the board was kept, as it were, at anchor. One end of a new rope was reeved through the chain of the shark-hook, and the other end fastened to a tree on the sandbank.

It was now an hour after sunset. The sky was cloudless, and the moon shone brightly. There was not a breath of wind in the heavens, and the river seemed like a large plain of quicksilver. Every now and then a huge fish would strike and plunge in the water; then the owls and goatsuckers would continue their lamentations, and the sound of these was lost in the prowling tiger's growl. Then all was still again, and silent as midnight.

The caymen were now upon the stir, and at intervals their noise could be distinguished amid that of the jaguar, the owls, the goatsuckers and frogs. It was a singular and awful sound, like a suppressed sigh, bursting forth all of a sudden, and so loud that you might hear it above a mile off. First one emitted this horrible noise, and then another answered him; and, on looking at the countenances of the people round him, Mr. Waterton could plainly see that they expected to have a cayman that night. The party were at supper, when the Indian