MONKEY EATEN BY CATFISH 299 



the stars, and sending on two men to 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 mid- 

 stream 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 aU 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. Probably 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 Brazilian 

 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 greyish- 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 Ita- 

 coatiara, on the Amazon, at the mouth of the Madeira, 

 the doctor had seen one of these monsters which had 



