n
nights, they answer, with a smile, that "the animals are rejoicing in
the beautiful moonlight, and celebrating the return of the full
moon." To me the scene appeared rather to be owing to an accidental,
long-continued, and gradually increasing conflict among the animals.
Thus, for instance, the jaguar will pursue the peccaries and the tapirs,
which, densely crowded together, burst through the barrier of tree-like
shrubs which opposes their flight. Terrified at the confusion, the
monkeys on the tops of the trees join their cries with those of the
larger animals. This arouses the tribes of birds who build their nests
in communities, and suddenly the whole animal world is in a state of
commotion. Further experience taught us that it was by no means always
the festival of moonlight that disturbed the stillness of the forest;
for we observed that the voices were loudest during violent storms of
rain, or when the thunder echoed and the lightning flashed through the
depths of the wood. The good-natured Franciscan monk who accompanied us
through the cataracts of Apures and Maypures to San Carlos, on the Rio
Negro, and to the Brazilian frontier, used to say, when apprehensive of
a storm at night, "May heaven grant a quiet night both to us and to the
wild beasts of the forest!"

[The unpleasant conditions of a canoe voyage on the Orinoco are
thus described:]

The new canoe intended for us was, like all Indian boats, a trunk of a
tree hollowed out partly by the hatchet and partly by fire. It was forty
feet long and three broad. Three persons could not sit in it side by
side. These canoes are so crank, and they require, from their
instability, a cargo so equally distributed, that when you want to rise
for an instant, you must warn the rowers to lean to the opposite side.
Without this precaution the water would necessarily enter the side
pressed down. It is difficult to form an idea of the inconveniences that
are suffered in such wretched vessels. To gain something in breadth, a
sort of lattice-work had been constructed on the stern with branches of
trees, that extended on each side beyond the gunwale. Unfortunately, the
_toldo_, or roof of leaves, that covered this lattice-work, was so low
that we were obliged to lie down, without seeing anything, or, if
seated, to sit nearly double. The necessity of carrying the canoe across
the rapids, and even from one river to another, and the fear of giving
too much hold to the w