114 Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



then one first crawled up on shore, to find out if thereby 

 he could not rid himself of the annoyance we caused 

 him. 



Next morning it was still raining, but we set off on 

 a hunt, anyway, going afoot. A couple of brown cama- 

 radas led the way, and Colonel Rondon, Dom Joao, Ker- 

 mit, and I followed. The incessant downpour speedily 

 wet us to the skin. We made our way slowly through 

 the forest, the machetes playing right and left, up and 

 down, at every step, for the trees were tangled in a net- 

 work of vines and creepers. Some of the vines were 

 as thick as a man's leg. Mosquitoes hummed about us, 

 the venomous fire-ants , stung us, the sharp spines of a 

 small palm tore our hands — ^afterward some of the 

 wounds festered. Hour after hour we thus walked on 

 through the Brazilian forest. We saw monkeys, the 

 common yellowish kind, a species of cebus; a couple 

 were shot for the museum and the others raced off 

 among the upper branches of the trees. Then we came 

 on a party of coatis, which look like reddish, long-snout- 

 ed, long-tailed, lanky raccoons. They were in the top 

 of a big tree. One, when shot at and missed, bounced 

 down to the ground, and ran off through the bushes; 

 Kermit ran after it and secured it. He came back, to 

 find us peering hopelessly up into the tree top, trying 

 to place where the other coatis were. Kermit solved the 

 difficulty by going up along some huge twisted lianas for 

 forty or fifty feet and exploring the upper branches; 

 whereupon down came three other coatis through the 

 branches, one being caught by the dogs and the other 

 two escaping. Coatis fight savagely with both teeth and 



