"He had a large map on the table, and had been marking his route with red ink along the course of the river. He was called suddenly from the table, leaving the map and the ink-bottle within the monkey's reach.
"As soon as he had gone, the monkey, doubtless in a spirit of imitation, climbed to the table, pulled the map towards him, and with his paw, dipped in the ink, made an imaginary survey of a railway or a steamboat route, at least a thousand miles long, according to the scale of the drawing. Just as he was finishing the performance the master returned, and caught him at it."
"What happened to the monkey?" Fred asked.
"I don't know exactly what became of him," was the reply. "He was given to one of the boatmen, who sold him to an Indian at the next landing. It wasn't safe to mention monkey to that gentleman for the rest of the time he stayed in the country."
HUNTING THE MONKEY.
Sunset came, and they stopped for the night. The raft was tied up at a small island, where there was little prospect of disturbance by hostile Indians; the tribe occupying this part of the country did not have a bad reputation, and there was no real danger, but the pilot was cautious on general principles. Watch was kept through the night, but nothing happened to disturb the slumber of those whose duties did not require them to be wakeful, if we except the visits of the mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes are the pests of the upper part of the entire valley of the Amazon. They are found wherever the rains fall, from the foot of the Andes, eastward, until within a few hundred miles of the Atlantic coast, from which they are kept in great measure, though not entirely, by the force of the trade winds. The middle Amazon swarms with them, and the Maranon, Madeira, and other tributaries are almost uninhabitable at certain seasons of the year, in consequence of these nuisances. They are always on duty, and no manner of objecting to their presence will induce them to leave.