THE VALLEY OF THE AMAZON. 



517 



particularly birds, sink into a profound sleep. Then all the warm-blooded animals 

 seek the shade, and only the cold reptiles, — alligators, lizards, salamanders, — stretch 

 themselves upon the glowing rocks in the bed of the forest- streams, or on sunny slopes, 

 and, with raised head and distended jaws, seem to inhale with delight the sultry air. 



As evening approaches, the noise of the morning begins to re-awaken. With loud 

 cries the parrots return from their distant feeding-grounds to the trees on which they 

 are accustomed to rest at night ; and, as the monkeys saluted the rising sun, so chat- 

 tering or howling, they watch him sinking in the west. With twilight a new world 

 of animals, — which, as long as the day lasted, remained concealed in the recesses of 

 the forest, — awakens from its mid-day torpor, and prepares to enjoy its nightly revels. 

 Then bats of hideous size wing their noiseless flight through the wood, chasing the 

 giant hawk-moths and beetles, which have also waited for the evening hour, while the 

 felidae quit their lairs, ready to spring on the red stag near some solitary pool, or on 

 the unwieldy tapir, who, having slept during the heat of the day, seeks, as soon as 

 evening approaches, the low-banked river, where he loves to wallow in the mud. Then 

 also the shy opossum quits his nest in hollow trees, or under some arch-like vaulted 

 root, to search for insects or fruits, and the cautious agouti sallies from the bush. - 



In our forests scarcely a single tone is heard after sunset ; but in the tropical zone 

 many loud voices celebrate the night, where, for hours after the sun has disappeared, 

 the cicadas, toads, frogs, owls, and goatsuckers chirrup, cry, croak, howl, and wail. 

 The quietest hours are from midnight until about three in the morning. Complete 

 silence, however, occurs only during very short intervals ; for there is always some 

 cause or other that prompts some animal to break the stillness. Sometimes the din 

 grows so loud, that one might fancy a legion of evil spirits were celebrating their 

 orgies in the darkness of the forest. Humboldt supposes the first cause of these tu- 

 mults to be a conflict among animals, which, arising by chance, gradually swells to 

 larger dimensions. The jaguar pursues a horde of pecaris or tapirs which break 

 wildly through the bushes. Terrified by the noise, the monkeys howl, awakening par- 

 rots and toucans from their slumber ; and thus the din spreads through the wood. 

 A long time passes before the forest returns to its stillness. Towards the approach 

 of day the owls, the goatsuckers, the toads, the frogs, howl, groan, and croak for the 

 last time ; and as soon as the first beams of morning purple the sky, the shrill notes 

 of the cicadas mix with their expiring cries. 



The valley of the Amazon is the great forest of the globe. This mighty river, 

 rising in the small mountain lake of Lauricocha, only sixty miles from the Pacific, 

 runs clear across the breadth of the continent, almost on the line of the Equator, and 

 empties into the Atlantic. Its whole length is'*2,740 miles, following its windings, or 

 2,050 in a straight line. From north to south its tributaries stretch 1,750 miles. At 

 a distance of 2,000 miles above its mouth it has a breadth of a mile and a half, after- 

 wards it spreads to ten miles, then expands until it presents to the Atlantic a front of 

 one hundred and eighty miles. The lake which is the source of the main stream lies 

 just below the limits of perpetual snow. For the first five hundred miles the stream 

 flows through a deep valley, before reaching the level of the great plain. 



The region drained by the Amazon dwarfs that of any other river. The Mississippi 

 drains an area of a million and a quarter square miles, the Amazon almost twice as 



*See note on page 524. 



