New Year’s Eye Celebrations. 
237 
Forty days after the egg is laid the youngster breaks the parchment 
envelope and slips out. 
717. Besides turtle-eggs our Indians also now and again found some 
nests of the tasty lizard, Iguana tuberculata Laur., close to the edge of 
the forest. The eggs are much smaller than those of the turtle, and it 
only rarely happens that more than 14 are found in one nest: they surpass 
the turtle eggs by far and in Georgetown are delicacies very much sought 
after. The real laying season of the Iguana appears to fall at the end 
of October, because its eggs are found most abundantly at this period 
of the year. 
718. After our boathands had gorged themselves with eggs we 
resumed our journey and soon recognised Gluck Island, some 5 miles long, 
rising ahead. The Caribs call it Aramisari Irupacu, a name that it has 
received from a small tiger-cat that was plentiful here in former days. 
Immediately opposite its southern spit, the Essequibo is joined by the 
Tipuri, its most important tributary we had met since the mouth of 
the Cuyuni. The generally characteristically flat banks below the first 
series of cataracts had already increased here to a general li eight of from 
ten to twelve feet: they consist of a mixture of sand and loam, which in 
some spots lie over one another in regular layers and have a light but 
generally fertile covering of mould overgrown with the most luxuriant 
vegetation. A trough-like cavity runs immediately behind and quite 
parallel with the margins of the banks: it is probably produced by the 
waters receding after the end of the wet season. 
719. The extraordinary appearance of the high steep clayey banks 
aroused our undivided attention. The most suitable description to 
apply to this perforated wall would be a cullender: thousands of round 
holes of the most varied sizes dotted its flat surface, and I learnt from 
the Indians with not a little surprise that they contained nests of Alcedo, 
the kingfisher, and as a matter of fact all the species that I met on the 
Essequibo seemed to have established a hatching colony in perfect 
harmony here. I saw the Alcedo torquata, the Alcedo Amazona Lath., 
A. superciliosa Linn., A. bicolor Linn. Gm., and A. Americana Linn. Gm„ 
slipping out of those holes, the size of which everywhere corresponded 
with the size of the species. As the holes were of considerable depth I 
could not observe whether the birds were still brooding: the continuous 
flying out and in of the old ones nevertheless led us to believe that they 
were already feeding their young. 
720. Being New Year’s Eve we could not think of spending it 
without the usual celebrations, it having proved a day of the most frightful 
anxiety, particularly for me, the year before. We accordingly pitched 
camp on a broad sandbank somewhat earlier than what had been custom- 
ary at ordinary times. Regularly at 4 o’clock, for instance, we were 
accustomed to pick a comfortable place, so that, for a few hours before 
nightfall, the hunters could rove through the forest and the fishers make 
a haul which, ever since reaching the rapids and sandbanks, was never 
made in vain. As soon as the boats were tied and the crews released, 
each one went about his business: only within the limits of the sand- 
banks where everybody wanted to make sure beforehand of a supply of 
