

WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 323 



Nothing can sound more dreadful than its nocturnal 

 howlings. While lying in your hammock in these gloomy 

 and immeasurable wilds, you hear him howling at in- 

 tervals, from eleven o'clock at night till daybreak. You 

 would suppose that half the wild beasts of the forest were 

 collecting for the work of carnage. Now, it is the tremen- 

 dous roar of the jaguar, as he springs on his prey : now 

 it changes to his terrible and deep-toned growlings 

 as he is pressed on all sides by superior force ; and 

 now, you hear his last dying moan, beneath a mortal 

 wound. 



Some naturalists have supposed that these awful sounds, 

 which you would fancy are those of enraged and dying 

 wild beasts, proceed from a number of the red monkeys 

 howling in concert. One of them alone is capable of 

 producing all these sounds ; and the anatomists, on an 

 inspection of his trachea, will be fully satisfied that this 

 is the case. When you look at him, as he is sitting on 

 the branch of a tree, you will see a lump in his throat, 

 the size of a large hen's egg. In dark and cloudy 

 weather, and just before a squall of rain, this monkey will 

 often howl in the daytime ; and if you advance cautiously, 

 and get under the high and tufted tree where he is sitting, 

 you may have a capital opportunity of witnessing his 

 wonderful powers of producing these dreadful and dis- 

 cordant sounds. 



His flesh is good food ; but when skinned, his appear- 

 ance is so like that of a young one of our own species, 

 that a delicate stomach might possibly revolt at the idea of 

 putting a knife and fork into it. However, I can affirm, 

 from experience, that after a long and dreary march 

 through these remote forests, the flesh of this monkey is 

 not to be sneezed at, when boiled in Cayenne pepper, or 

 roasted on a stick over a good fire. A young one tastes 



