THE ANIMALS. 



229 



he has to kill them with his fingers. The Indians bring me a number 

 of very beautiful birds every evening, and I have my hands full, even 

 with the occasional assistance of Arebalo and the padre's servant. I do 

 not know if it arises from the constant tugging at the bird-skins, or the 

 slovenly use of arsenical soap, but the blood gathered under nearly all 

 the nails of my left hand, and they were quite painful. 



We have increased our stock of animals largely at this place. They 

 now number thirteen monkeys, a mongoose, and a wild pig, (the Mexi- 

 can peccary,) with thirty-one birds, and one hundred skins. I bought 

 a young monkey of an Indian woman to-day. It had coarse gray and 

 white hair; and that on the top of its head was stiff, like the quills of 

 the porcupine, and smoothed down in front as if it had been combed. 

 I offered the little fellow some plantain ; but finding he would not eat, 

 the woman took him and put him to her breast, when he sucked away 

 manfully and with great " gusto." She weaned him in a week so that 

 he would eat plantain mashed up and put into his mouth in small bits ; 

 but the little beast died of mortification, because I would not let him 

 sleep with his arms around my neck. 



I had two little monkeys not so large as rats; the peccary ate one, 

 and the other died of grief. My howling monkey refused food, and 

 grunted himself to death. The friars ate their own tails off, and died of 

 the rot; the mongoose, being tied up on account of eating the small 

 birds, literally cut out his entrails with the string before it was noticed. 

 The peccary jumped overboard and swam ashore ; the tuyuyus grabbed 

 and swallowed every paroquet that ventured within reach of their bills; 

 and they themselves, being tied on the beach at Eyas, were devoured by 

 the crocodiles. My last monkey died as I went up New York bay; 

 and I only succeeded in getting home about a dozen mutuns, or curas- 

 sows; a pair of Egyptian geese ; a pair of birds, called pucacunga in 

 Peru, and jacu in Brazil; a pair of macaws; a pair of parrots; and a 

 pair of large white cranes, called jabura, which are the same, I believe, 

 as the birds called adjutants in India. 



November 24. — Preparing for departure. Our boat, which had been 

 very badly calked in Nauta, required re-calking. The tow, or filling 

 used is the inner bark of a tree called machinapuro, beaten and mashed 

 into fibres. It answers very well, and there is great abundance in the 

 forest. Its cost is twelve and a half cents the mantada, or as much as 

 an Indian can carry in his blanket. An Indian can gather and grind 

 two mantadas in a day. Ten or twelve mantadas are required to calk 

 such a boat as mine. The pitch of the country is said to be the deposit 

 of an ant in the trees. I never saw it in its original state. It is gathered 



