DOWN AN UNKNOWN RIVER 311 



explore the rapids in advance. They returned with the news 

 that there were big cataracts in them, and that they would 

 form an obstacle to our progress. They had also caught a 

 huge siluroid fish, which furnished an excellent meal for 

 everybody in camp. This evening at sunset the view across 

 the broad river, from our camp where the two rivers joined, 

 was very lovely; and for the first time we had an open 

 space in front of and above us, so that after nightfall the 

 stars, and the great waxing moon, were glorious overhead, 

 and against the rocks in midstream the broken water 

 gleamed like tossing silver. 



The huge catfish which the men had caught was over 

 three feet and a half long, with the usual enormous head, 

 out of all proportion to the body, and the enormous mouth, 

 out of all proportion to the head. Such fish, although 

 their teeth are small, swallow very large prey. This one 

 contained the nearly digested remains of a monkey. Prob- 

 ably the monkey had been seized while drinking from the 

 end of a branch; and once engulfed in that yawning cavern 

 there was no escape. We Americans were astounded at the 

 idea of a catfish making prey of a monkey; but our Bra- 

 zilian friends told us that in the lower Madeira and the 

 part of the Amazon near its mouth there is a still more 

 gigantic catfish which in similar fashion occasionally makes 

 prey of man. This is a grayish-white fish over nine feet 

 long, with the usual disproportionately large head and 

 gaping mouth, with a circle of small teeth; for the engulfing 

 mouth itself is the danger, not the teeth. It is called the 

 piraiba — pronounced in four syllables. While stationed at 

 the small city of Itacoatiara, on the Amazon, at the mouth 

 of the Madeira, the doctor had seen one of these monsters 



