32 THREE DAYS ON THE ORINOCO, 



no where to be seen, and the boat itself was gone. In the first mo- 

 ments of my astonishment, I bitterly upbraided my companions, ac- 

 cusing them of treachery and desertion. Calmer reflection soon satis- 

 fied me that in so doing I erred; the rivers had doubtless risen 

 rapidly during the night, when it was most probable all were soundly 

 sleeping, had loosened the rope securing them to their anchorage, 

 and drifted them down the current, where their surprise, it was not 

 unlikely, would equal my own on discovering their change of situa- 

 tion. This view of matters was at all events very consolotary ; I felt 

 convinced that in a few hours they would beat their way back to 

 where I had been left, never calculating what a great alteration had 

 been produced by the inundation upon the land-marks, which might 

 have enabled them to find me. The situation, indeed, was not very 

 favourable for cool consideration. After having soothed myself with 

 the hopes of a speedy release, I set about examining my prison- 

 house. It was spacious enough ; the tree was one of the largest of 

 its kind, and a regiment of cavalry might have been sheltered be- 

 neath its capacious head ; but it afforded nothing edible. Had I got 

 into a banana, or bread-fruit tree, I might have done better ; but 

 here nothing but the extreme twigs offered any chance of a meal. 



I have said that I awoke stiff and chilled, and my efforts, for a while, 

 were directed to shaking off these feelings by passing rapidly from one 

 portion of the tree to another. In doing this I had reached a point 

 where a longer space than usual separated the boughs ; busily en- 

 gaged in attending to my steps, my attention was aroused by a 

 very loud hiss; hastily raising my head, I found myself within a foot 

 of a full-grown iguana, whose eyes of living flame, erected crest, and 

 extended pouch so frightened me that it was by the merest chance 

 imaginable I did not fall. From a child I had had a peculiar dread 

 of the lizard tribe, the newt and the little brown lizard, so common 

 in most parts of England, had ever been objects of singular aversion 

 to me, and the feat of all others amongst boys I could never manage, 

 was to permit one of these animals to creep up the sleeve. I retreated, 

 therefore, with great precipitation till I had removed myself as far 

 apart as possible from my frightful neighbour. I knew the thing to 

 be perfectly innoxious, yet I shrank from it as if it had been the most 

 deadly creature in existence. To my still greater discomfiture I soon 

 discovered that the one I had stumbled upon had a companion of 

 equally monstrous proportions with itself. My peregrinations, limited 

 as they had been before, were now still more confined. With a fear 

 I could not overcome, I watched the motions of these two reptiles 

 with a sort of fascination, and as they moved about, flourishing their 

 immense tails, I carefully kept myself from all chance of contact with 

 them. To increase my miseries a violent ague fit came on, attended 

 with most excruciating head-ache and pains in all my limbs. Shiver- 

 ing so violently that I could hardly support myself, I crouched down 

 in the fork of two large branches, and resting my head on my knees, 

 abandoned myself to all the horrors of my situation. The expecta- 

 tions which I had reasonably formed faded from my mind, and as I 

 looked abroad, and saw the waste of waters around me, swarming, as 

 I well knew they did, with so many ferocious creatures, and upon the 



