ng our stay at the mills for several days to me the greatest treat
was making my first acquaintance with the monkeys. One morning, when
walking alone in the forest, I heard a rustling of the leaves and
branches. Looking up, I saw a large monkey staring down at me, and
seeming as much astonished as I was myself. He speedily retreated. The
next day, being out with Mr. Leavens, near the same place, we heard a
similar sound, and it soon became evident that a whole troop of monkeys
was approaching.

We hid ourselves under some trees and with guns cocked awaited their
coming. Presently we caught sight of them skipping from tree to tree
with the greatest ease, and at last one approached too near for its
safety, for Mr. Leavens fired and it fell. Having often heard how good
monkey was, I took it home and had it cut up and fried for breakfast.
There was about as much of it as a fowl, and the meat something
resembled rabbit, without any peculiar or unpleasant flavour.

On August 3rd we received a fresh inmate into our veranda in the person
of a fine young boa constrictor. A man who had caught it in the forest
left it for our inspection. It was about ten feet long, and very large,
being as thick as a man's thigh. Here it lay writhing about for two or
three days, dragging its clog along with it, sometimes stretching its
mouth open with a most suspicious yawn, and twisting up the end of its
tail into a very tight curl. We purchased it of its captor for 4s. 6d.
and got him to put it into a cage which we constructed. It immediately
began to make up for lost time by breathing most violently, the
expirations sounding like high-pressure steam escaping from a Great
Western locomotive. This it continued for some hours and then settled
down into silence which it maintained unless when disturbed or
irritated. Though it was without food for more than a week, the birds we
gave it were refused, even when alive. Rats are said to be their
favourite food, but these we could not procure.

Another interesting little animal was a young sloth, which Antonio, an
Indian boy, brought alive from the forest. It could scarcely crawl along
the ground, but appeared quite at home on a chair, hanging on the back,
legs, or rail.

_III.--On the Para Tributary_

On the afternoon of August 26th we left Para for the Tocantins. Mr.
Leavens had undertaken to arrange all the details of the voyage. He had
hired one of the roughly made but convenient country canoe