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nocturnal life of animals.—a night on the apure.
Below the mission of Santa Barbara de Arichuna we
passed the night as usual, in the open air, on a sandy flat,
on the banks of the Apure, skirted by the impenetrable
forest. We had some difficulty in finding dry wood to kindle
the fires with which it is here customary to surround the
bivouac, as a safeguard against the attacks of the jaguar.
The air was bland and soft, and the moon shone brightly.
Several crocodiles approached the bank, and I have observed
that fire attracts these creatures as it does our crabs and
many other aquatic animals. The oars of our boats were
fixed upright in the ground to support our hammocks.
Deep stillness prevailed, only broken at intervals by
the blowing of the fresh-water dolphins. After eleven
o’clock, such a noise began in the contiguous forest, that
for the remainder of the night all sleep was impossible. The
wild cries of animals rung through the woods. Among the
many voices which resounded together the Indians could only
recognise those which, after short pauses, were heard singly.
There was the monotonous plaintive cry of the aluates (howling
monkeys), the whining, flute-like notes of the small sapajous,
the grunting murmur of the striped nocturnal ape(Nyctipithe-
cus trivirgatus, which I was the first to describe), the fitful
roar of the great tiger, the cuguar or maneless American
lion, the peccary, the sloth, and a host of parrots, perraquas
(Ortalides), and other pheasant-like birds. Whenever the
tigers approached the edge of the forest, our dog, who before
had barked incessantly, came howling to seek protection
under the hammocks. Sometimes the cry of the tiger re-
sounded from the branches of a tree, and was then always
accompanied by the plaintive piping tones of the apes, who
were endeavouring to escape from the unwonted pursuit.
If one asks the Indians why such a continuous noise is
heard on certain nights, they answer, with a smile, that “the
animals are rejoicing in the beautiful moonlight, and cele-
brating the return of the full moon.” To me, the scene ap-
peared rather to be owing to an accidental, long-
continued, and gradually increasing conflict among
the animals. Thus, for instance, the jaguar will pursue
the peccaries and the tapirs, which, densely crowded
together, burst through the barrier of tree-like shrubs
which opposes their flight. Terrified at the confusion,
the monkeys on the tops of the trees join their cries
with those of the larger animals. This arouses the tribes of
birds who build their nests in communities, and suddenly the
whole animal world is in a state of commotion. Further
experience taught us that it was by no means always the
festival of moonlight that disturbed the stillness of the forest,
for we observed that the voices were loudest during violent
storms of rain, or when the thunder echoed and the light-
ning flashed through the depths of the woods. The good-
natured Franciscan monk who (notwithstanding the fever
from which he had been suffering for many months) accom-
panied us through the cataracts of Atures and Maypures to
San Carlos, on the Rio Negro, and to the Brazilian coast,
used to say, when apprehensive of a storm at night, “May
Heaven grant a quiet night both to us and to the wild beasts
of the forest!”—Humboldt’s Views of Nature.