SOUTH AMERICA. 



41 



border on it, have nothing but a thin coarse grass and First 



Journey. 



huge stones on them ; others quite wooded ; others 



with their summits crowned, and their base quite bare ; 

 and others again with their summits bare, and their base 

 in thickest wood. 



Half of this day's march is in water, nearly up to the ^ 

 knees. There are four creeks to pass : one of them has 

 a fallen tree across it. You must make your own bridge 

 across the other three. Probably, were the truth known, 

 these apparently four creeks are only the meanders of 

 one. 



The Jabiru, the largest bird in Guiana, feeds in the xheJabiru. 

 marshy savanna through which you have just passed. 

 He is wary and shy, and will not allow you to get within 

 gunshot of him. 



You sleep this night in the forest, and reach an Indian 

 settlement about three o'clock the next evening, after 

 walking one third of the way through wet and miry 

 ground. 



But bad as the walking is through it, it is easier than 

 where you cross over the bare hills, where you have to 

 tread on sharp stones, most of them lying edgewise. 



The ground gone over these two last days, seems con- 

 demned to perpetual solitude and silence. There was not 

 one four-footed animal to be seen, nor even tlie marks of 

 one. It would have been as silent as midnight, and all 

 as still and unmoved as a monument, had not the Jabiru 



G 



