A Travelling Party of Guaribas.
Supper over, our adventurers only awaited the sunset to signal them to their repose. They had already selected their beds, or what was to serve for such,—the spaces of horizontal network formed by the intertwining of luxuriant llianas. At the best, it was no better than sleeping upon a raked hurdle; but they had been already somewhat inured to an uneasy couch on the galatea, and they were every day becoming less sensitive to necessities and hardships. They were all tired with the severe exertions they had made; for although their journey had been but about six miles, it was enough to equal sixty made upon land. They felt as if they could go to sleep astride of a limb, or suspended from a branch.
It was not decreed by fate that they should find rest before being made the witnesses of a spectacle so curious, that, had they been ever so much inclined for sleep, would have kept them awake against their will.
A noise heard afar off in the forest attracted their attention. There was nothing in it to alarm them, though had they not heard it before, or something similar to it, their fears might have been excited to the utmost pitch of terror. What they heard was the lugubrious chant of a band of howling monkeys. Of all the voices of Nature that awake the echoes of the Amazonian forest, there is perhaps none so awe-inspiring as this. It is a combination of sounds, that embrace the various tones of shrieking, screaming, chattering, growling, and howling, mingled with an occasional crash, and a rattle, such as might proceed from the throat of a dying maniac. And yet all this is often the product of a single mycetes, or howling monkey, whose hollow hyoidal bone enables him to—send forth every species of sound, from the rolling of a bass drum to the sharp squeak of a penny-whistle.
“Guaribas!” quietly remarked the Mundurucú, as the distant noise was first heard.
“Howling monkeys you mean?” interrogatively rejoined Trevannion.
“Yes, patron, and the loudest howlers of the whole tribe. You’ll hear them presently. They are coming this way.”
“They’re not far off now, I should say, if one may judge by the loudness of their cries.”
“All of a mile yet, patron. It proves that the forest stretches more than a mile in that direction, else the guaribas could not be there. If there be open water between us and them, they won’t come this way. If not, we’ll have them here in ten minutes’ time. I wish we could only travel among the tree-tops as they can. We shouldn’t stay long in the Gapo.”
“Just as the Mundurucú expected,” continued the tapuyo, after a pause. “The guaribas are coming towards us. I can hear the swishing of the leaves as they pass among them. We’ll soon see them.”