We found later that this was such a common occurrence that in almost all the houses there were instruments for getting rid of the bewildered, fluttering birds. The more cruel used only a long stick with which the birds were struck down, but the more humanely inclined had nets on the end of long poles. As many as seven Honey Creepers are occasionally entrapped at one time. They do not seem to know how to fly toward light and liberty after getting up among the dark rafters.

The fauna of this exceedingly marshy region was different from that higher up. Agoutis and pacas are abundant but capybaras do not come this side of Barramanni Police Station. Deer and peccaries are very rare. Jaguars are unknown but ocelots are occasionally found, a young one having been killed under the house at Christmas. It lived in a burrow and took a chicken each night until it was killed.

Many fish were seen playing about the tent-boat as it was tied to the wharf, and among others were scores of small pipe-fish. Mr. Crandall caught a small round sun-fish-like form, brilliantly colored and with a most wicked looking set of triangular teeth. As he was about to take the fish off the hook it deliberately twisted itself in the direction of his hand and bit his finger, taking a piece out with one snip of its four razor-like incisors. This was our introduction to the famous Perai or Carib Fish (Serrasalmo scapularis) which seems to fear nothing, man, crocodile or fish, and a school of which can disable any creature in a very short time.

At this point we left the Waini and turned off into the Barama. We had followed the Waini day and night for about sixty miles, until, from a stream of two miles or more in width, it had narrowed to little more then one hundred yards.

We left Farnum’s at three in the afternoon and steamed slowly up the Barama for twelve hours, tying up to the bank from three to seven in the early morning. We slept but little, for the strange wonderland which opened up before us. At nine o’clock the full moon rose and the beauty of the wilderness became indescribable. In the north—along the rivers of the Canadian forest—the spruces and firs are clean-trunked, tapering to tall, isolated, symmetrical summits. Here the very opposite conditions exist; solid massive walls of black foliage, with almost never a glimpse of trunk and bark. Most characteristic are the long, slender bush-ropes or lianas. In the forest they are thick, gnarled and knotted; there we get the vivid feeling of serpentine struggles in the terribly slow but none the less remorseless striving for light and air, but along the rivers the lianas are pendent threads or cables—straight as plummets and often a hundred feet in length. These give a decorative aspect to the scene unlike any other type of forest—temperate or northern.

In the moonlight the appearance of the walls of foliage is like painted scenery. Their blackness and impenetrability give a feeling of flatness and the summit outlines are crudely regular. The dominant sound at night along the Barama was a sweet tinkling as of tiny bells, all in unison and harmony, but with a range of at least four half-tones. The tree-toads clinging here and there to leaves and flowers throughout the jungle fill this whole region with the melody of their chimes; striking the minutes as if with a thousand tiny anvils, and only too often leading some enemy to their hiding places.

We woke at early dusk and climbing out upon the bow of the tent-boat watched the coming of the tropical day. The medley of fairy bells was still bravely ringing, but as the dawn approached, the little nocturnal musicians ceased tolling and the chorus died out with a few faint, final tinkles. Six o’clock, and the sunshine upon the tree-tops brought a burst of sound from the Woodhewers, a succession of twelve to twenty loud, ringing tones in a rapidly descending scale—Canyon Wren-like and taken up continuously from far and near. The very tang and crispness of the early dawn seemed to inspire the quality of their notes.

As soon as it was light, Swallows were seen in numbers, small, dark steel-blue in color with a striking band of white across the breast. These beautiful Banded Swallows118 kept at first to two levels in the air; close to the water, fairly skimming its surface, and high up above the tallest trees—marking I suppose the early morning distribution of gnats and other insects. Most delicate and fairy-like they appeared when perched on some great orchid-hung dead branch protruding from the water.

We can find no adjectives to express the beauty and calm of the cool, early morning on these tropical rivers. Myriads—untold myriads—of leaves and branches surround us like the lofty walls of a canyon. We have used the words wall in this connection many times and no other word seems to be so suitable. All sense of flatness is lost in the light of the dawn; and instead we see these living walls now as infinitely softened; but still the eye cannot penetrate the intricate tangle. Not a breath of air stirs the smallest leaf. It is like the fairy river of an enchanted country—all Nature quiet and resting—with only the brown current ever slipping silently past, here and there foam-flecked or bearing some tiny aquatic plant with its rosette of downy leaves.

Then,—the lush tropical nature rushing ever to extremes—comes a deluge of virile life upon the scene. A great fish leaps far upward, shattering the surface, pursued by a fierce, brown-coated otter, almost as large as a man. A half dozen green Parrots throb screaming past in pairs; two big Red-breasted King-fishers67 spring from their perch and come leaping toward us through the air, suddenly wheeling up almost in a somersault and down like two meteors into the water.

We leave our bushy moorings at last and keep on up the river with the tide, passing the English mission of Father Carey-Elwis, which, like Farnum’s, is built on a hill, isolated amid the great expanse of flat marshy jungle. A dozen little naked Indian lads shriek in sheer excitement and rush down to the water’s edge to watch us pass, peering fearfully out from behind trees like little gnomes.

From here on butterflies became very abundant; many large Yellows and Oranges and Morphos of two kinds, one altogether iridescent blue, the other blue and black. As the little vocal messages of the tree-frogs are carried far and wide through the jungle at night, so in the sunshine the morphos, like heliographs of azure, flash silently from bend to bend of the river. Conspicuous among the great Mora and Purple-heart trees were the white-barked Silk Cottons. Large yellow tubular blossoms and masses of purple pea blooms tint the trees here and there.

The Indians along the river were catching two kinds of fish; one a silvery mullet about six inches long called Bashew, and a catfish of the same size. The latter was most formidable in appearance but actually harmless. Four slender barbels of medium size depended from the lower jaw, while two pigmented ones extended forward from the upper jaw and were so long that when pressed back they reached to the tail.

Rain fell irregularly during the day, but so gently and so softly that we hardly knew when it began and when it ended. It never chilled but rather refreshed. About noon a third migrational flocking of birds was noticed; seventy-two large South American Black Hawks55 circling slowly around, setting their wings after a while and sailing off to the west as one bird.

The action and reaction among the vegetation was often as striking as among more active organisms. Where parasitic aërial roots had descended seventy or eighty feet and touched the water near shore, vines had somehow managed to reach out and throw a tendril about the roots, take hold and climb circle upon circle to the top. The palm trees alone of all the forest growth seemed universally free from parasitic plants and climbing vines.

Above the mission, coincident with the increase of butterflies and the appearance of occasional sand-banks, palm trees disappeared without apparent reason. The river narrowed as we ascended until it was only fifty yards across and the bends increased in angle and number. Now and then we passed a cut-off when the stream had cut through one of its own bends and made a new bed for itself.

A small opening in the wall of verdure was hailed as Hoorie Creek and, dropping behind the launch, we were towed a mile or more up its tortuous length, now and then running aground or rather “atree,” as it was only thirty feet wide and as sinuous as a serpent. We tied fast to a big overhanging tree which marked the end of our journey by water and, all excitement, leaped ashore.