Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v1.djvu/224

 in his bamboo tinder-box with a piece of an old file and a flint, the tinder being a felt-like soft 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 cutía, 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 cutía was roasted, and washed the meal down with a calabash full of the pure water of the river.

After breakfast the dogs found another cutía, which was hidden in its burrow two or three feet beneath the roots of a large tree, and 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 snowy-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 hot-houses; they can therefore form some idea of a forest of arums. On this islet the woody stems of the plants near the bottom were 8 to 10 inches in diameter, and the trees were 12 to 15 feet high; all growing together in such a manner