Chap. IV. PURITY OF THE WATER. 293 



troop, and wounded him. He climbed pretty nimbly 

 towards a denser part of the tree, and a second and third 

 discharge failed to bring him down. The poor maimed 

 creature then trailed his limbs to one of the topmost 

 branches, where we descried him soon after, seated and 

 picking the entrails from a wound in his abdomen ; 

 a most heart-rending sight. The height from the 

 ground to the bough on which he was perched could 

 not have been less than 150 feet, and we could get a 

 glimpse of him only by standing directly underneath, and 

 straining our eyes upwards. We killed him at last by 

 loading our best gun with a careful charge, and resting 

 the barrel against the tree-trunk to steady the aim. A 

 few shots entered his chin, and he then fell heels over 

 head screaming to the ground. Although it was I who 

 gave the final shot, this animal did not fall to my lot in 

 dividing the spoils at the end of the day. I regret now 

 not having preserved the skin, as it belonged to a 

 very large species of Cebus, and one which I never met 

 with afterwards. 



It was about one o'clock in the afternoon when we 

 again reached the spot where we had first struck the 

 banks of the larger pool. We had hitherto had but 

 poor sport, so after dining on the remains of our fried 

 fish and farinha, and smoking our cigarettes, the ap- 

 paratus for making which, including bamboo tinder-box 

 and steel and flint for striking a light, being carried by 

 every one always on these expeditions, we made off in 

 another (westerly) direction through the forest to try to 

 find better hunting-ground. We quenched our thirst 

 with water from the pool, which I was rather surprised 



