WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 269 



"When we had got about two-thirds up it, we met the 

 Indians going a fishing. I saw, by the way their things 

 were packed in the curial, that they did not intend to 

 return for some days. However, on telling them what we 

 wanted, and by promising handsome presents of powder, 

 shot, and hooks, they dropped their expedition, and invited 

 us up to the settlement they had just left, and where we 

 laid in a provision of cassava. 



They gave us for dinner boiled ant-bear and red 

 monkey; two dishes unknown even at Beauvilliers in 

 Paris, or at a London city feast. The monkey was very 

 good indeed, but the ant-bear had been kept beyond its 

 time ; it stunk, as our venison does in England ; and so, 

 after tasting it, I preferred dining entirely on monkey. 

 After resting here, we went back to the river. The 

 Indians, three in number, accompanied us in their own 

 curial, and, on entering the river, pointed to a place a 

 little way above, well calculated - to harbour a cayman. 

 The water was deep and still, and flanked by an immense 

 sand-bank ; there was also a little shallow creek close by. 



On this sand-bank, near the forest, the people made a 

 shelter for the night. My own was already made ; for I 

 always take with me a painted sheet, about twelve feet 

 by ten. This, thrown over a pole, supported betwixt two 

 trees, makes you a capital roof with very little trouble. 



We showed one of the Indians the shark-hook. He 

 shook his head and laughed at it, and said it would not 

 do. When he was a boy, he had seen his father catch the 

 caymen, and on the morrow he would make something 

 that would answer. 



In the meantime, we set the shark-hook, but it availed 

 us nought; a cayman came and took it, but would not 

 swallow it. 



Seeing it was useless to attend the shark-hook any 



