Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon | Page 7

to feel the want of a snooze. Two or three hours' rest
would, he thought, put him in a state to continue his road, and so he
laid himself down on the grass as comfortably as he could, and waited
for sleep beneath the ironwood-tree.
Torres was not one of those people who drop off to sleep without
certain preliminaries. HE was in the habit of drinking a drop or two of
strong liquor, and of then smoking a pipe; the spirits, he said,
overexcited the brain, and the tobacco smoke agreeably mingled with
the general haziness of his reverie.
Torres commenced, then, by applying to his lips a flask which he
carried at his side; it contained the liquor generally known under the
name of "chica" in Peru, and more particularly under that of "caysuma"
in the Upper Amazon, to which fermented distillation of the root of the
sweet manioc the captain had added a good dose of "tafia" or native
rum.
When Torres had drunk a little of this mixture he shook the flask, and
discovered, not without regret, that it was nearly empty.
"Must get some more," he said very quietly.
Then taking out a short wooden pipe, he filled it with the coarse and
bitter tobacco of Brazil, of which the leaves belong to that old "petun"
introduced into France by Nicot, to whom we owe the popularization of
the most productive and widespread of the solanaceae.

This native tobacco had little in common with the fine qualities of our
present manufacturers; but Torres was not more difficult to please in
this matter than in others, and so, having filled his pipe, he struck a
match and applied the flame to a piece of that stick substance which is
the secretion of certain of the hymenoptera, and is known as "ants'
amadou." With the amadou he lighted up, and after about a dozen
whiffs his eyes closed, his pipe escaped from his fingers, and he fell
asleep.
[1] One thousand reis are equal to three francs, and a conto of reis is
worth three thousand francs.
CHAPTER II
ROBBER AND ROBBED
TORRES SLEPT for about half an hour, and then there was a noise
among the trees--a sound of light footsteps, as though some visitor was
walking with naked feet, and taking all the precaution he could lest he
should be heard. To have put himself on guard against any suspicious
approach would have been the first care of our adventurer had his eyes
been open at the time. But he had not then awoke, and what advanced
was able to arrive in his presence, at ten paces from the tree, without
being perceived.
It was not a man at all, it was a "guariba."
?Of all the prehensile-tailed monkeys which haunt the forests of the
Upper Amazon--graceful sahuis, horned sapajous, gray-coated monos,
sagouins which seem to wear a mask on their grimacing faces--the
guariba is without doubt the most eccentric. Of sociable disposition,
and not very savage, differing therein very greatly from the mucura,
who is as ferocious as he is foul, he delights in company, and generally
travels in troops. It was he whose presence had been signaled from afar
by the monotonous concert of voices, so like the psalm-singing of some
church choir. But if nature has not made him vicious, it is none the less
necessary to attack him with caution, and under any circumstances a
sleeping traveler ought not to leave himself exposed, lest a guariba

should surprise him when he is not in a position to defend himself.
This monkey, which is also known in Brazil as the "barbado," was of
large size. The suppleness and stoutness of his limbs proclaimed him a
powerful creature, as fit to fight on the ground as to leap from branch to
branch at the tops of the giants of the forest.
He advanced then cautiously, and with short steps. He glanced to the
right and to the left, and rapidly swung his tail. To these representatives
of the monkey tribe nature has not been content to give four hands--she
has shown herself more generous, and added a fifth, for the extremity
of their caudal appendage possesses a perfect power of prehension.
The guariba noiselessly approached, brandishing a study cudgel, which,
wielded by his muscular arm, would have proved a formidable weapon.
For some minutes he had seen the man at the foot of the tree, but the
sleeper did not move, and this doubtless induced him to come and look
at him a little nearer. He came forward then, not without hesitation, and
stopped at last about three paces off.
On his bearded face was pictured a grin, which showed his sharp-edged
teeth, white as ivory, and the cudgel began to move about in a