30 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



weird light over everytliing, we sent two of the crew ahead 

 in the rowboat to l-ieep our bow straight, and then began a 

 long night of noiseless drifting with the tide. It was a night 

 to remain forever in our memory. The men relieved their 

 monotonous towing with strange wailing chants; on each side 

 the mangroves slipped past, black and menacing; invisible 

 creatures snorted and splashed in sudden terror as we 

 rounded each turn ; great fireilies burned on the trees and were 

 reflected in the water, and to our ears came the roars of the 

 four-handed folk, the calls and screams of night birds, the 

 metallic clinks of insects, and ever the gasps and chokings 

 of the serpents' burrows — hardly less sinister now that we 

 had solved their mystery. 



Throughout all the night we passed up one cano, down 

 another, past miles and miles of black foliage, all alike to us, 

 almost indistinguishaljle in the starlight, yet early next morn- 

 ing as we rose to rout the cloud of mosquitoes about our 

 head nets, the captain said in his soft Spanish tongue, " The 

 mountains of my country sliould be in sight ahead." And, 

 indeed, an hour later, as the day dawned, we could discern 

 the blue haze in the north which marked the high land out. 



Toucans, big Muscovy Ducks''^ and Snakebirds^* flew past 

 us; great brown Woodpeckers and flights of Parrakeets swung 

 across the cano; dolphins played around us, but we heeded 

 them little, all eager to press on and see the new land. 



So we sat far up in the bow and watched the mountains take 

 form and the palms upon them become ever more distinct. 

 From a land of mystery untrodden by man, we were soon to 

 come upon a bit of land so prized by man that nations had 

 almost gone to war over it — La Brea {Bray' ah), the strange 

 lake of pitch hidden in the heart of the forest, with its strange 

 birds and fish and animals; lying on the borderland between 

 the foot-hills of the northern Andes and the world of man- 

 groves which for many days had held us so safely in its heart. 



