nted to write, had serenaded me while
I crossed the Cuyuni in a canoe. There arose deep, liquid, vibrating
sounds, such as those I now heard, deep and penetrating, as if from
some submarine gong--a gong which could not be thought of as wet, for
it had never been dry. As I stopped paddling the sound became absolute
vibration, the canoe itself seemed to tremble, the paddle tingled in
my hands. It was wholly detached; it came from whatever direction the
ear sought it. Then, without dying out, it was reinforced by another
sound, rhythmical, abrupt, twanging, filling the water and air with a
slow measure on four notes. The water swirled beside the canoe, and a
face appeared--a monstrous, complacent face, such as Bocklin would
love--a face inhuman in possessing the quality of supreme contentment.
Framed in the brown waters, the head of the great, grinning catfish
rose, and slowly sank, leaving outlines discernible in ripples and
bubbles with almost Cheshire persistency. One of my Indians, passing
in his dugout, smiled at my peering down after the fish, and murmured,
"Boom-boom."

Then came a day when one of these huge, amiable, living smiles
blundered into our net, a smile a foot wide and six feet long, and
even as he lay quietly awaiting what fate brought to great catfish, he
sang, both theme and accompaniment. His whole being throbbed with the
continuous deep drumming as the thin, silky walls of his swim-bladder
vibrated in the depths of his body. The oxygen in the air was slowly
killing him, and yet his swan song was possible because of an inner
atmosphere so rich in this gas that it would be unbreathable by a
creature of the land. Nerve and muscle, special expanse of circling
bones, swim-bladder and its tenuous gas--all these combined to produce
the aquatic harmony. But as if to load this contented being with
largesse of apparently useless abilities, the two widespreading fin
spines--the fins which correspond to our arms--were swiveled in
rough-ridged cups at what might have been shoulders, and when moved
back and forth the stridulation troubled all the water, and the air,
too, with the muffled, twanging, _rip_, _rip_, _rip_, _rip_. The two
spines were tuned separately, the right being a full tone lower, and
the backward drawing of the bow gave a higher note than its forward
reach. So, alternately, at a full second tempo, the four tones rose
and fell, carrying out some strange Silurian theme: a muffled cadence
of underto