ELECTRIC EELS 



429 



case of recovery after being bitten ; but in that case the 

 person was lamed for Hfe. 



We walked over moderately elevated and dry ground 

 for about a mile, and then descended (three or four feet 

 only) to the dry bed of another creek. This was pierced 

 in the same way as the former watercourse, with round 

 holes full of muddy water. They occurred at intervals 

 of a few yards, and had the appearance of having been 

 made by the hand of man. The smallest were about 

 two feet, the largest seven or eight feet in diameter. As 

 we approached the most considerable of the larger ones, 

 I was startled at seeing a number of large serpent-like 

 heads bobbing above the surface. They proved to be 

 those of electric eels, and it now occurred to me that 

 these round holes were made by these animals working 

 constantly round and round in the moist muddy soil. 

 Their depth (some of them were at least eight feet deep) 

 was doubtless due also to the movements of the eels in 

 the soft soil, and accounted for their not drying up, in the 

 fine season, with the rest of the creek. Thus, whilst 

 alligators and turtles in this great inundated forest region 

 retire to the larger pools during the dry season, the 

 electric eels make for themselves little ponds in which to 

 pass the season of drought. 



My companions now cut each a stout pole, and pro- 

 ceeded to eject the eels in order to get at the other fishes, 

 with which they had discovered the ponds to abound. 

 I amused them all very much by showing how the electric 

 shock from the eels could pass from one person to another. 

 We joined hands in a line whilst I touched the biggest 

 and freshest of the animals on the head with the point of 

 my hunting-knife. We found that this experiment did 

 not succeed more than three times with the same eel 

 when out of the water : for, the fourth time, the shock 

 was scarcely perceptible. All the fishes found in the 

 holes (besides the eels) belonged to one species, a small 

 kind of Acari, or Loricaria, a group whose members have 

 a complete bony integument. Lino and the boy strung 

 them together through the gills with slender sipos, and 

 hung them on the trees to await our return later in the 

 day. 



Leaving the bed of the creek, we marched onwards, 

 always towards the centre of the land ; guided by the 

 sun, which now glimmered through the thick foliage 



