Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/311

 troop, and wounded him. He climbed pretty nimbly towards a denser part of the tree, and a second and third discharge failed to bring him down. The poor maimed creature then trailed his limbs to one of the topmost branches, where we descried him soon after, seated and picking the entrails from a wound in his abdomen; a most heart-rending sight. The height from the ground to the bough on which he was perched could not have been less than 150 feet, and we could get a glimpse of him only by standing directly underneath, and straining our eyes upwards. We killed him at last by loading our best gun with a careful charge, and resting the barrel against the tree-trunk to steady the aim. A few shots entered his chin, and he then fell heels over head screaming to the ground. Although it was I who gave the final shot, this animal did not fall to my lot in dividing the spoils at the end of the day. I regret now not having preserved the skin, as it belonged to a very large species of Cebus, and one which I never met with afterwards.

It was about one o'clock in the afternoon when we again reached the spot where we had first struck the banks of the larger pool. We had hitherto had but poor sport, so after dining on the remains of our fried fish and farinha, and smoking our cigarettes, the apparatus for making which, including bamboo tinder-box and steel and flint for striking a light, being carried by every one always on these expeditions, we made off in another (westerly) direction through the forest to try to find better hunting-ground. We quenched our thirst with water from the pool, which I was rather surprised