[124] Monkeys form an article of food throughout tropical America. The meat is tough, but keeps longer than any other in that climate. The Indians told Gibbon that "the tail is the most delicate part when the hair is properly singed."
[125] The trapiche or sugar-mill of the Andes is a rude affair. The cane is pressed between cogged wooden cylinders worked by bullocks, and the juice is received in troughs made of hollowed logs.
[126] Bates says the Mundurucus express surprise by making a clicking sound with their teeth, and Darwin observes that the Fuegians have the habit of making a chuckling noise when pleased.
[127] The like perfect equality exists among the Fuegian tribes. "A piece of cloth given to one is torn into shreds and distributed, and no one individual becomes richer than another."—Darwin.
[128] Some orchid is in flower all the year round. The finest species is the odontoglossum, having long, chocolate-colored petals, margined with yellow. "Such is their number and variety (wrote Humboldt) that the entire life of a painter would be too short to delineate all the magnificent Orchideæ which adorn the recesses of the deep valleys of the Peruvian Andes." For many curious facts respecting the structure of these flowers, see Darwin's Fertilization of Orchids.
[129] In the Quichua of Quito the peccari is called saino.
[130] The Uaupes on the Napo, according to Wallace, will not eat peccari meat. "Meat putrifies in this climate (of the Tapajos) in less than twenty-four hours, and salting is of no use unless the pieces are cut in thin slices and dried immediately in the sun."—Bates.
[131] The specific name was strangely given for its habit, when young, of darting upon mice. Anaconda is a Ceylonese word.
[132] Sand-flies are called by the natives musquitoes, and what we call musquitoes they call sancudos.
[133] Herndon makes the mouth of the Napo 150 yards broad, and the soundings six or seven fathoms. This is not a fair representation; for the Napo, like all the other tributaries, empties its waters by several mouths. At Camindo, five miles above the confluence, the Napo is certainly a mile wide.