A Journey to Mount Russell. 219 
piled high on either side of the river ; while over all was 
ihe broad path of dark steel-blue sky, everywhere set with 
numberless stars, its space unbroken except where some 
manicole [Euterpe edulis), most lightly graceful in form 
of all the palms of Guiana, springing out and up from the 
forest walls showed like fine black tracery against the 
sky, or when, as not seldom happens in such tropical 
regions, the stately quiet of the sky itself was instantly 
disturbed by the hurry of a flashing meteor. 
In such still and beautiful night scenes as these 
the scent of flowering tree and shrub and creeper fills the 
air more fully and yet more pleasantly than by day. And 
the ceaseless chorus of frogs, of many kinds and as many 
voices, and even the occasional scream of some other 
animal — weird because its origin is unknown and may 
most freely be imagined — seems, not noise, but rather 
serves to mark the absence of all other sound, and thus 
fully to complete the perfect stillness of the night. 
As we passed up the river that night, a strange whist- 
ling sound, prolonged and very low, was pronounced by 
our boat-hands to be the cry of a "red tiger," that is a 
puma. 
About an hour after midnight the moon sank ; and 
about the same time, we having then been for some time 
in the Issororo, we came into such narrow and winding 
reaches of that river that, after spending another hour 
in running the bow of the canoe against fallen trees and 
into the river bank, we camped where a few yards of dry 
ground, raised a few inches above the the troolie-swamp 
which almost everywhere edges the river, gave oppor- 
tunity. 
