Chapter Sixty Eight.
A Fish-Cow at Pasture.
The Irishman was no wiser for Munday’s answer, “The juarouá.”
“But what is it?” he again asked, curious to learn something of the creature. “Is it a fish or a quadruped?”
“A peixe-boi,—a peixe-boi!” hurriedly answered the tapuyo. “That’s how the whites call it. Now you know.”
“But I don’t, though, not a bit betther than before. A pikes-boy! Troth, it don’t look much like a pike at all, at all. If it’s a fish av any kind, I should say it was a sale. O, luk there, Munday! Arrah, see now! If it’s the owld pike’s boy, yandher’s the young wan too. See, it has tuk howlt av the tit, an’ ’s sucking away like a calf! An’ luk! the old wan has got howlt av it with her flipper, an’ ’s kapin’ it up to the breast! Save us! did hever I see such a thing!”
The sight was indeed one to astonish the Irishman, since it has from all time astonished the Amazonian Indians themselves, in spite of its frequency. They cannot understand so unusual a habit as that of a fish suckling its young; for they naturally think that the peixe-boi is a fish, instead of a cetacean, and they therefore continue to regard it with curious feelings, as a creature not to be classified in the ordinary way.
“Hush!” whispered the Indian, with a sign to Tom to keep quiet. “Sit still! make no noise. There’s a chance of our capturing the juarouá,—a good chance, now that I see the juarouá-i (little one) along with it. Don’t wake the others yet. The juarouá can see like a vulture, and hear like an eagle, though it has such little eyes and ears. Hush!”
The peixe-boi had by this time got abreast of the dead-wood, and was swimming slowly past it. A little beyond there was a sort of bay, opening in among the trees, towards which it appeared to be directing its course, suckling the calf as it swam.
“Good,” said Munday, softly. “I guess what it’s going after up there. Don’t you see something lying along the water?”
“Yes; but it’s some sort av wather-grass.”
“That’s just it.”
“An’ what would it want wid the grass? Yez don’t mane to till me it ates grass?”
“Eats nothing else, and this is just the sort it feeds on. Very like that’s its pasturing place. So much the better if it is, because it will stay there till morning, and give me a chance to kill it.”
“But why can’t yez kill it now?” said Tom.
“For want of a proper weapon. My knife is of no use. The juarouá is too cunning to let one come so near. If it come back in the morning, I will take care to be ready for it. From it we can get meat enough for a long voyage. See, it has begun to browse!”
Sure enough it had, just as the Indian said, commenced pasturing upon the long blades of grass that spread horizontally over the surface; and just as a cow gathers the meadow sward into her huge mouth, at intervals protruding her tongue to secure it, so did the great water cow of the Amazon spread her broad lips and extend her rough tongue to take in the floating herbage of the Gapo.