“The sloth suckles its young like other quadrupeds,” observed our friend; “and I have often seen the female, with her little one clinging to her, moving at a rate through the forest which shows that the sloth does not properly deserve its name. See now—give a shout—and then say if it is too sluggish to more.”
John and I shouted together, and True barked loudly. The sloths gave reproachful glances at us for disturbing them, and then began to move away at a speed which an active sailor running up the rigging of a ship could scarcely equal. In a short time, slinging themselves from branch to branch, they had disappeared in the depths of the forest.
“Let them go,” observed our friend. “You do not want a meal, or you would find their flesh supply you with one not to be disdained.” The last remark was made as we again moved on. Once more we relapsed into silence. When, however, a bird, or moth, or any creature appeared, our guide stopped for an instant, and turning round, told us its name and habits. We passed several curious trees, one of which he pointed out rising from the ground in numerous stalks, which then united in a thick stem, and afterwards, half-way up, bulged out in a long oval, again to narrow, till at the summit six or eight branches, with palm-like formed leaves, spread forth, forming a graceful crown to the curious stem. He called it the Iriartes ventricosa, or bulging-stemmed palm. Again we passed through a grove of urucuri palms (Attalea excelsa). Their smooth columnar stems were about forty or fifty feet in height, while their broad, finely pinnated leaves interlocked above, and formed arches and woven canopies of varied and peculiarly graceful shapes. High above them rose the taller forest trees, whose giant branches formed a second canopy to shade them from the glaring rays of the sun. Many of the trees rose eighty feet without a branch, their stems perfectly straight. Huge creepers were clinging round them, sometimes stretching obliquely from their summits, like the stays of a ship’s mast. Others wound round their trunks, like huge serpents ready to spring on their prey. Others, again twisted spirally round each other, forming vast cables of living wood, holding fast those mighty monarchs of the forest. Some of the trees were so covered with smaller creepers and parasitic plants that the parent stem was entirely concealed. The most curious trees were those having buttresses projecting from their bases. The lower part of some of them extended ten feet or more from the base of the tree, reaching only five or six feet up the trunk. Others again extended to the height of fully thirty feet, and could be seen running up like ribs to a still greater height. Some of these ribs were like wooden walls, several inches in thickness, extended from the stem, so as to allow room for a good-sized hut to be formed between them by merely roofing over the top. Again, I remarked other trees ribbed and furrowed for their whole height. Occasionally these furrows pierced completely through the trunks, like the narrow windows of an ancient tower. There were many whose roots were like those of the bulging palm, but rising much higher above the surface of the ground. The trees appeared to be standing on many-legged pedestals, frequently so far apart from each other that we could without difficulty walk beneath them. A multitude of pendants hung from many of the trees, some like large wild pine-apples, swinging in the air. There were climbing arums, with dark-green arrow-head shaped leaves; huge ferns shot out here and there up the stems to the topmost branches. Many of the trees had leaves as delicately cut as those of the graceful mimosa, while others had large palmate leaves, and others, again, oval glossy ones.
Now and then, as I looked upwards, I was struck with the finely-divided foliage strongly defined against the blue sky, here and there lighted up by the bright sunshine; while, in the region below through which we moved, a deep gloom prevailed, adding grandeur and solemnity to the scene. There were, however, but few flowers; while the ground on which we walked was covered with dead leaves and rotten wood, the herbage consisting chiefly of ferns and a few grasses and low creeping plants.
We stopped at last to lunch, and while John and I were seated on the branch of a fallen tree, our friend disappeared. He returned shortly, with his arms full of large bunches of a round juicy berry. “Here,” he said, “these will quench your thirst, and are perfectly wholesome.” We found the taste resembling that of grapes. He called it the purumá. We were too eager to find Arthur to rest long, and were once more on our journey.
“From the account you gave me, I hope we may soon meet with your friends,” observed the recluse, “unless they have turned back in despair of finding you.”
“Little fear of that,” I observed. “I am sure Arthur will search for us as long as he has strength to move.”
Still we went on and on, and Arthur did not appear; and we asked our companion whether he did not think it possible that our friends might have tried to make their way along the bank of the river.
“No,” he answered, “the jungle is there too thick; and if we find signs of their having made the attempt, we shall speedily overtake them; for though we have made a considerable circuit, they by this time could scarcely have progressed half a mile even with the active employment of sharp axes.”
This somewhat comforted me; for notwithstanding what the recluse said, I felt nearly certain that Arthur would attempt to examine the whole length of the bank, in hopes of discovering what had become of us. We went on and on till we entered a denser part of the forest, where we were compelled to use our axes before we could get through. At length I caught sight through an opening of what looked like a heap of boughs at a distance. The recluse, quickening his pace, went on towards it. We eagerly followed. It was a hut roughly built. Extinguished embers of a fire were before it. We looked in eagerly. It was empty, but there were leaves on the ground, and dry grass, as if people had slept there. It had been, there was little doubt, inhabited by Arthur and his companions. It was just such a hut as they would have built in a hurry for defence against the storm. But what had become of them?