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"Following the direction in which Abe pointed, my eyes rested on a huge parasite of the lliana kind, that, rising out of the ground at some distance, slanted upward and joined the sycamore near its top. This had no doubt been the ladder by which the 'coon had climbed. "This discovery, however, did not mend the matter as far as we were concerned.
They were pieces of a lliana, or creeping plant. It was the bejuco de curare, or "mavacure," as it is sometimes called. The leaves he had stripped off, and left behind as useless. Had he brought them with him, they would have been seen to be small leaves of an oblong-oval shape, sharp at the points, and of a whittish-green colour. Don Pablo knew the plant to be a species of Strychnos.
I had seized my gun, and both barrels were emptied in a `squirrel's jump. Two of the 'coons came to the ground, badly wounded. Pompo tackled another, that had run down the lliana, and was attempting to get off; while Abe with his axe clove the skull of a fourth, that had tried to escape in a similar manner.
Basking upon the bank, or floating along the stream, we may behold the great water lizards the crocodile and caïman; or the unwieldly forms of the cheloniæ the turtles. Nimbly running along the tree-trunk, or up the slanting lliana, we may see the crested iguana, hideous to behold.
They were pieces of a lliana, or creeping plant. It was the bejuco de curare, or "mavacure," as it is sometimes called. The leaves he had stripped off, and left behind as useless. Had he brought them with him, they would have been seen to be small leaves of an oblong-oval shape, sharp at the points, and of a whitish-green colour. Don Pablo knew the plant to be a species of Strychnos.
Now the shades of night no longer obscured the silent depths of the American forest a silence in which there is something awful when the sun in its zenith sends forth burning rays like blades of crimson fire, when the flower of the lliana closes its chalice, when the stems of the grass drop languidly downwards, as though in search of nourishment, and the whole face of nature, silent and inanimate, appears buried in sleep.
The caiman crawls lazily along the bank, or hides his hideous body under the water of a sluggish stream, and the not less hideous form of the iguana, recognised by its serrated crest, is seen crawling up the tree-trunk or lying along the slope of a lliana.
A clump of these grew near, their naked stems laced by a parasite of the lliana species, which rose from the earth, and, traversing diagonally, was lost in the feathery frondage above. These formed a canopy, underneath which, from tree to tree, three hammocks were extended. One was empty; the other two were occupied.
We heard a scraping and rattling within the hollow trunk, and a moment after a dark object sprang out upon the lliana, and ran a short way downward. Another followed, and another, and another, until a string of no less than six raccoons squatted along the parasite threatening to run downward! "The scene that followed was indescribable.
"They die each time," said the interpreters, as the canoemen, with loud shouts of "Vai ou nao Vai? Vai sempre! Vai direito, ya mondele!" and "Arister," a mariner's word, after failing to force the way, tumbled overboard, with a hawser of lliana to act as tow-line.
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