Fish.
Smoked pacu and Electric eel.
Side Dishes.
Curried monkey, Maroudi à la Turesie.
Joint.
Haunch of Venison.
Bakes.
Dumplings, Sea biscuit.
Coffee and Eno’s Fruit Salt ad lib.
CHAPTER XV.
THE BUSH-MASTER—LABARRI—CAMOODI—WOOD ANTS—TURESIE—A PACU HUNT—CASHEW TREE—WOODSKINS—PIRAI—SINGING FISH—INDIAN DANCE—BEADS—FASHION—A RIVER BEND—VIEW OF HILLS—SNIPE—INDIAN MYTHOLOGY—WANT A DOG—TABLE MOUNTAINS—MERUME RIVER—COURSE OF THE MAZARUNI.
Towards midnight I was aroused by a low rustling sound in the bushes; as I glanced around, my eye fell on an old mora tree just opposite, and at the foot of my hammock, there on the grey trunk I plainly saw the shadow of a snake’s head and neck. From its position, there could be no doubt that it was close beside me, and almost over my head, its body being half hidden by the branches of one of the trees in which it was coiled. As I watched, the head and neck moved towards me and drew back in slow undulating movements, the forked tongue shot out and seemed almost to touch me. I did not dare to move, and hardly to breathe, as the reptile seemed only waiting for my slightest motion in order to strike. The minutes that I lay there with my eyes fixed on the horrid shadow seemed like hours; all sorts of thoughts passed across my brain; had I the nightmare? could the curried monkey have disagreed with me? I was wet with perspiration and at last could stand it no longer, but, slowly disentangling my feet from the blanket, threw myself forward and sprang to the ground. Seizing my gun, I pointed it to where the snake must have been, but there was no appearance of one, and a careful search revealed nothing. Then I went to bed again, and there in front of me, on the tree, was the same writhing form and shooting tongue. I put up hand, and its shadow almost grasped the neck of the creature; then I raised myself, and looking up saw my enemy. A projecting twig and a few leaves gently swayed by the breeze were all that remained of my snake, but the shadow they cast was so exactly that of a serpent that when I pointed it out to McTurk he fully believed for a moment that it was one.
The forests of Guiana are well furnished with everything that a traveller can want in the shape of beast or insect, and in snakes they are especially prolific. Of these, the “bush-master”[53] is the most dreaded, and as its name implies, is lord of the woods. In colour it is as brilliant as its bite is venomous. The “labarri”[54] is equally poisonous, but is not so aggressive as the “bush-master.” The “camoodi”—a boa-constrictor—is the largest of all the snakes, and the stories of their enormous size and strength would be incredible to any one who had not travelled in Guiana. A gentleman in Georgetown solemnly assured me that once when he was out shooting in the interior, with a party of seven others, they stopped to rest after a long walk and all sat down on a falling trunk; all at once it began to move, and what they had imagined to be the trunk of a tree proved to be an immense “camoodi,” which glided slowly into the forest without being fired at by any of the amazed spectators. The “water-camoodi”[55] is even larger and more dangerous than the land species.