They carried sheets of fine muslin--the ordinary mosquito-nets are useless--for if a "squeeter" gets one leg through, his body very soon wriggles after, and then he begins to sing a song of thanksgiving before piercing the skin of the sleeper with his poison-laden proboscis. But mosquitoes cannot get through the muslin, and have to sing to themselves on the other side.
After a time, however, the muslin was not thought about, for all hands had received their baptism of blood, and bites were hardly felt.
[CHAPTER XX--THE PAGAN PAYNEES WERE THIRSTING FOR BLOOD]
A glance at any good map will show the reader the bearings and flow of this romantic and beautiful river, the Madeira. It will show him something else--the suggestive names of some of the cataracts or rapids that have to be negotiated by the enterprising sportsman or traveller in this wild land.
The Misericordia Rapids and the Calderano de Inferno speak for themselves. The latter signifies Hell's Cauldron, and the former speaks to us of many a terrible accident that has occurred here--boats upset, bodies washed away in the torrent, or men seized and dragged below by voracious alligators before the very eyes of despairing friends.
The Cauldron of Hell is a terrible place, and consists of a whole series of rapids each more fierce than the other. To attempt to stem currents like these would of course be madness. There is nothing for it but portage for a whole mile and more, and it can easily be guessed that this is slow and toilsome work indeed. Nor was the weather always propitious. Sometimes storms raged through the woods, with thunder, lightning, and drenching rain; or even on the brightest of days, down might sweep a whirlwind, utterly wrecking acres and acres of forest, tearing gigantic trees up by the roots, twisting them as if they were ropes, or tossing them high in air, and after cutting immense gaps through the jungle, retire, as if satisfied with the chaos and devastation worked, to the far-off mountain lands.
Once when, with their rifles in hand, Roland and Dick were watching a small flock of tapirs at a pond of water, which formed the centre of a green oasis in the dark forest, they noticed a balloon-shaped cloud in the south. It got larger and larger as it advanced towards them, its great twisted tail seeming to trail along the earth.
Lightning played incessantly around it, and as it got nearer loud peals of thunder were heard.
This startled the tapirs. They held their heads aloft and snorted with terror, running a little this way and that, but huddling together at last in a timid crowd.
Down came the awful whirlwind and dashed upon them.