I hinted to Cardozo that I thought we had now had enough of watching, and suggested a cigarette.Just then a quick pattering movement was heard on the sands, and grasping our guns, we both started to our feet.Whatever it might have been it seemed to pass by, and a few moments afterwards a dark body appeared to be moving in another direction on the opposite slope of the sandy ravine where we lay.We prepared to fire, but luckily took the precaution of first shouting "Quem vai la?" (Who goes there?) It turned out to be the taciturn sentinel, Daniel, who asked us mildly whether we had heard a "raposa" pass our way.The raposa is a kind of wild dog, with very long tapering muzzle, and black and white speckled hair.Daniel could distinguish all kinds of animals in the dark by their footsteps.It now began to thunder, and our position was getting very uncomfortable.Daniel had not seen anything of the other Indians, and thought it was useless waiting any longer for Tracajas; we therefore sent him to call in the whole party, and made off ourselves, as quickly as we could, for the canoe.The rest of the night was passed most miserably;as indeed were very many of my nights on the Solimoens.A furious squall burst upon us; the wind blew away the cloths and mats we had fixed up at the ends of the arched awning of the canoe to shelter ourselves, and the rain beat right through our sleeping-place.There we lay, Cardozo and I, huddled together, and wet through, waiting for the morning.
A cup of strong and hot coffee put us to rights at sunrise, but the rain was still coming down, having changed to a steady drizzle.Our men were all returned from the pool, having taken only four Tracajas.The business which had brought Cardozo hither being now finished, we set out to return to Ega, leaving the sentinels once more to their solitude on the sands.Our return route was by the rarely frequented north-easterly channel of the Solimoens, through which flows part of the waters of its great tributary stream, the Japura.We travelled for five hours along the desolate, broken, timber-strewn shore of Baria.The channel is of immense breadth, the opposite coast being visible only as a long, low line of forest.At three o'clock in the afternoon we doubled the upper end of the island, and then crossed towards the mouth of the Teffe by a broad transverse channel running between Baria and another island called Quanaru.There is a small sand-bank at the north-westerly point of Baria, called Jacare; we stayed here to dine and afterwards fished with the net.A fine rain was still falling, and we had capital sport-- in three hauls taking more fish than our canoe would conveniently hold.They were of two kinds only, the Surubim and the Piraepieua (species of Pimelodus), very handsome fishes, four feet in length, with flat spoon-shaped heads, and prettily-spotted and striped skins.
On our way from Jacare to the mouth of the Teffe we had a little adventure with a black tiger or jaguar.We were paddling rapidly past a long beach of dried mud, when the Indians became suddenly excited, shouting "Ecui Jauarete; Jauaripixuna!" (Behold the jaguar, the black jaguar!) Looking ahead we saw the animal quietly drinking at the water's edge.Cardozo ordered the steersman at once to put us ashore.By the time we were landed the tiger had seen us, and was retracing his steps towards the forest.On the spur of the moment, and without thinking of what we were doing, we took our guns (mine was a double-barrel, with one charge of B B and one of dust-shot) and gave chase.The animal increased his speed, and reaching the forest border, dived into the dense mass of broad-leaved grass which formed its frontage.We peeped through the gap he had made, but, our courage being by this time cooled, we did not think it wise to go into the thicket after him.The black tiger appears to be more abundant than the spotted form of jaguar in the neighbourhood of Ega.The most certain method of finding it is to hunt assisted by a string of Indians shouting and driving the game before them in the narrow restingas or strips of dry land in the forest, which are isolated by the flooding of their neighbourhood in the wet season.We reached Ega by eight o'clock that night.
On the 6th of October we left Ega on a second excursion; the principal object of Cardozo being, this time, to search certain pools in the forest for young turtles.The exact situation of these hidden sheets of water is known only to a few practised huntsmen; we took one of these men with us from Ega, a Mameluco named Pedro, and on our way called at Shimuni for Daniel to serve as an additional guide.We started from the praia at sunrise on the 7th in two canoes containing twenty-three persons, nineteen of whom were Indians.The morning was cloudy and cool, and a fresh wind blew from down river, against which we had to struggle with all the force of our paddles, aided by the current; the boats were tossed about most disagreeably, and shipped a great deal of water.On passing the lower end of Shimuni, a long reach of the river was before us, undivided by islands-- a magnificent expanse of water stretching away to the southeast.The country on the left bank is not, however, terra firma, but a portion of the alluvial land which forms the extensive and complex delta region of the Japura.It is flooded every year at the time of high water, and is traversed by many narrow and deep channels which serve as outlets to the Japura, or at least, are connected with that river by means of the interior water-system of the Cupiyo.
