Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/266

 sand on this cool morning. The sky was cloudless; the just-risen sun was hidden behind the dark mass of woods on Shimuní, but the long line of forest to the west, on Bariá, with its plumy decorations of palms, was lighted up with his yellow, horizontal rays. A faint chorus of singing birds reached the ears from across the water, and flocks of gulls and plovers were crying plaintively over the swelling banks of the praia, where their eggs lay in nests made in little hollows of the sand. Tracks of stray turtles were visible on the smooth white surface of the praia. The animals which thus wander from the main body are lawful prizes of the sentinels; they had caught in this way two before sunrise, one of which we had for dinner. In my walk I disturbed several pairs of the chocolate and drab-coloured wild goose (Anser jubatus) which set off to run along the edge of the water. The enjoyment one feels in rambling over these free, open spaces, is no doubt enhanced by the novelty of the scene, the change being very great from the monotonous landscape of forest which everywhere else presents itself.

On arriving at the edge of the forest I mounted the sentinel's stage, just in time to see the turtles retreating to the water on the opposite side of the sand-bank, after having laid their eggs. The sight was well worth the trouble of ascending the shaky ladder. They were about a mile off, but the surface of the sands was blackened with the multitudes which were waddling towards the river; the margin of the praia was rather steep, and they all seemed to tumble head first down the declivity into the water.