Mr. Bates closes his account by stating that the total number of species of monkeys which he found inhabiting the margins of the Upper and Lower Amazons was thirty-eight, belonging to twelve different genera, forming two distinct families.
THE SLOTH.
"I once had an opportunity, in one of my excursions, of watching the movements of a sloth. Some travellers in South America have described the sloth as very nimble in its native woods, and have disputed the justness of the name which has been bestowed upon it. The inhabitants of the Amazons region, however, both Indians and descendants of the Portuguese, hold to the common opinion, and consider the sloth as the type of laziness. It is very common for one native to call to another, in reproaching him for idleness, 'Bicho do Embaüba' (beast of the cecropia-tree); the leaves of the cecropia being the food of the sloth. It is a strange sight to see the uncouth creature, fit production of these silent woods, lazily moving from branch to branch. Every movement betrays, not indolence exactly, but extreme caution. He never looses his hold from one branch without first securing himself to the next; and, when he does not immediately find a bough to grasp with the rigid hooks into which his paws are so curiously transformed, he raises his body, supported on his hind legs, and claws around in search of a fresh foothold. After watching the animal for about half an hour, I gave him a charge of shot: he fell with a terrific crash, but caught a bough in his descent with his powerful claws, and remained suspended. Two days afterward, I found the body of the sloth on the ground; the animal having dropped, on the relaxation of the muscles, a few hours after death. In one of our voyages, I saw a sloth swimming across a river at a place where it was probably three hundred yards broad. Our men caught the beast, and cooked and ate him."
"We had an unwelcome visitor while at anchor in the port. I was awakened a little after midnight, as I lay in my little cabin, by a heavy blow struck at the sides of the canoe close to my head, succeeded by the sound of a weighty body plunging in the water. I got up; but all was quiet again, except the cackle of fowls in our hen-coop, which hung over the side of the vessel, about three feet from the cabin-door. Next morning I found my poultry loose about the canoe, and a large rent in the bottom of the hen-coop, which was about two feet from the surface of the water. A couple of fowls were missing.
"Antonio said the depredator was the sucumjú, the Indian name for the anaconda, or great water-serpent, which had for months past been haunting this part of the river, and had carried off many ducks and fowls from the ports of various houses. I was inclined to doubt the fact of a serpent striking at its prey from the water, and thought an alligator more likely to be the culprit, although we had not yet met with alligators in the river. Some days afterward, the young men belonging to the different settlements agreed together to go in search of the serpents. They began in a systematic manner, forming two parties, each embarked in three or four canoes, and starting from points several miles apart, whence they gradually approximated, searching all the little inlets on both sides of the river. The reptile was found at last, sunning itself on a log at the mouth of a muddy rivulet, and despatched with harpoons. I saw it the day after it was killed. It was not a very large specimen, measuring only eighteen feet nine inches in length, and sixteen inches in circumference at the widest part of the body."
ALLIGATORS.
"Our rancho was a large one, and was erected in a line with the others, near the edge of the sand-bank, which sloped rather abruptly to the water. During the first week, the people were all more or less troubled by alligators. Some half-dozen full-grown ones were in attendance off the praia, floating about on the lazily flowing, muddy water. The dryness of the weather had increased since we left Shimuni, the currents had slackened, and the heat in the middle of the day was almost insupportable. But no one could descend to bathe without being advanced upon by one or other of these hungry monsters. There was much offal cast into the river; and this, of course, attracted them to the place. Every day, these visitors became bolder: at length, they reached a pitch of impudence that was quite intolerable. Cardozo had a poodle-dog named Carlito, which some grateful traveller whom he had befriended had sent him from Rio Janeiro. He took great pride in this dog, keeping it well sheared, and preserving his coat as white as soap and water could make it. We slept in our rancho, in hammocks slung between the outer posts; a large wood fire (fed with a kind of wood abundant on the banks of the river, which keeps alight all night) being made in the middle, by the side of which slept Carlito on a little mat. One night, I was awoke by a great uproar. It was caused by Cardozo hurling burning firewood with loud curses at a huge cayman, which had crawled up the bank, and passed beneath my hammock (being nearest the water) towards the place where Carlito lay. The dog raised the alarm in time. The reptile backed out, and tumbled down the bank into the river; the sparks from the brands hurled at him flying from his bony hide. Cardozo threw a harpoon at him, but without doing him any harm."
"One day, I was searching for insects in the bark of a fallen tree, when I saw a large, cat-like animal advancing towards the spot. It came within a dozen yards before perceiving me. I had no weapon with me but an old chisel, and was getting ready to defend myself if it should make a spring; when it turned round hastily, and trotted off. I did not obtain a very distinct view of it; but I could see its color was that of the puma, or American lion, although it was rather too small for that species.