Deer Trapped by Floods. 
801 
and reminders of the night of torment remained several days longer in 
tlie dark red dots on oiw skins. Day broke with heaven and earth 
covered: the former by gloomy clonds, the latter hy their products. 
The river luid completely overllowed its banks, and the savannah had 
changed into tlie basin of a huge Jake upon wliich we were able to continue 
onr journey w ith far h^ss etfort. Huge trees, Avhich the current of the 
stream Jiad uprooted, nuimmals that the flood had taken by surprise, 
snakes and lizards that had been Tenable to escape the rising water, 
friend and foe of the animal kingdom, drifted ])ast us: white cranes, 
storks, and othei- water-birds sat u])on tlie tops of the foliage trees and 
stately Maiirifias; and gazed upon their favourite element while some 
deer, that had sought refuge from a watery grave, either stood or lay 
in tlie luxuriant grass upon the rises that th(? floods waters had not yet 
reached. On approaching such a place of refuge, the shy lot would 
spring up and make a bolt for it until stopped by the water-edge when, 
with a steady stamp of the front limlis they would turn liack to look at 
us, or else attempt to jump into the flood, out of which they nevertheless 
quickly, returned to dry land. 
710. We could not let this favourable opportunity slip without 
taking ndvantage of it. Two of our Indians, armed with guns which 
they held with one hand above the water, swam off to one such island, 
but had hardly reached it before the deer, in still wilder hurry, sprang 
into the flood and away they went. A solitary one, however, had remained 
and now withdrew into the high grass, where both Indians tried to stalk 
it like cats upon their prey. After a while the anxious creature raised 
its head again, looked carefully around, and not noticing its pursuers, 
continued to graze afresh. A report and the animal's desperate jump 
into the air told us that the huntsmen had completed their task. The 
returning victors were welcomed amid laughter and the game placed in 
the corial. 
717. When the savannah waters proved too shallow in places for our 
boats, we were of course forced to return to the river which nevertheless 
was always attended with plenty of difficulty, because we had first of all 
to cut a way through the dense river-side growth with axe and cutlass. 
Thousands of ants that had fled from a watery grave up the trees and 
larger l)ushes, made this Avork none too pleasant, owing to the fact that 
at every blow thousands fell upon us and into the eorial. In spite of the 
knowle^lge that we would have to break through this fence again, we 
nevertheless immediately returned to the flooded savannah as soon as 
the depth of water there allowed of our doing so at all. The masses of 
granite still remaining exposed above the surface of the water were 
covered with numerous specimens of (Ir.^nrria ^rliomhiircil-ii . while 
the Genipa Carnto in isolated spots grew beside the rocks. We spread 
our breakfast table u])on one of these gi-anites and at the same time fired 
our mortar, to notify our arrival to the Indians who were probably 
collected at the landing-place for WativTicaba, in the neighbourhood of 
which we were told we now were. 
718. By afternoon we had got so close to the Waruwau or 
Awarra, which coming heae from the K.E. flows into the Rupununi 
