290 
The Giant Crane, 
undivided attention. It was tlie first that I and several others of the 
expedition had ever seen, and we were accordingly not a little astonished 
when this huge bird came running up to us with a peculiar hissing and 
piping note very much like that of our young storks. Its immense 
beak, bent somewhat upwards, surprised us just as much as its naked 
head and neck only sparsely covered with feather-down. 
820. When the boat reached, Ave continued our journey alongside 
the blackened bank now robbed of its botanical splendours. Only here 
and there had the liame spared an isolated crippled Cumtella Americana, 
Linn, or a Gomphia cardiosperma De C. and G. glaberrima Beauv. The 
Indians use the rough hard leaves of the former as we employ shave- 
grass or pumice-stone, for polishing their weapons, etc. 
821. The south-easterly spur of the Pacaraima now ran fairly down 
to the water-side along the foot of which the river meandered for a while. 
The banks here consisted of a bright yellow clay, richly mixed with sand 
and the savannah spread out immediately behind the riverside vegetation 
which kept on varying repeatedly in width. If the sandbanks in 
comparison with the Essequibo only appeared always at intervals now, 
their number exceeded those of that river by far. Some giant cranes, 
6ft. high, generally strutted up and down them with arrogant step. 
This measured walk and erect carriage gave the bird indeed a worthy 
and imposing appearance. Like our storks they have to take a thrice- 
repeated run before they rise. Their visit to the sandbanks is partly 
dependent upon the young turtles* which we now saw hurrying out of 
the sand down to the water more plentifully than ever. The instinct 
according to which these reptiles never miss their way to it is truly 
wonderful; we often carried these small delicate creatures far into the 
bush, and then turned their heads inland, but in vain— hardly had we 
withdrawn our hands than the little animal turned itself round and 
without delay scampered off to the river. 
<822. The curiously-shaped cuirass-fisli ( Loricaria cdtaphracta 
Linn.) was also to be found on the sandbanks and, like the Callicftthys 
related to it, seems to leave the water and undertake small trips on 
land. We often found it two or three feet away from the edge of the 
water where it lay quiet on the damp sand and fell an easy prey. 
823. I am still not yet finished with my account of the inhabitants 
of, or at least the visitors to, the sandbanks : the biggest of the rodents, 
the water-liog (Hydrochaerus Capybara) , frequents them in very large 
numbers. Although we had already found everywhere upon the 
Essequibo sandbanks the most abundant traces of this ungainly and 
clumsy animal, we had never succeeded in meeting with a specimen. 
The coloured people call them water-haas, a name that probably arises 
from the Dutch. Like otters, they are good swimmers and yet cleverer 
divers, and only very seldom betake themselves inland far from the 
waterside. A pretty little duck, Anas viduafa Linn., also showed up 
here together with the A. moschata : the former is likewise called Yissisi 
* Macusis contradict- this statement - they maintain that the birds’ diet* is strictly 
limited to fish. (Ed.) 
