The footing was level and easy. Rocks and precipices were left behind, and were displaced by a soft, slippery sort of sand, where from space to space were planted, like so many oases in a desert, clumps of giant reeds. By a strange but natural caprice these beds of rustling verdure were cut in an infinity of well-defined geometric forms. Seen from an eminence and at a distance, this arrangement gave a singular effect. In the midst of these native garden-beds were cut distinct and narrow alleys, where the drifting sands were packed like artificial paths. It is unnecessary to add that the soft footways, notwithstanding their advertisement of verdure and shade, proved to be of African temperature.
The last hours of daylight surprised the travelers among the labyrinths of these strange gardens. A suitable spot was chosen for the halt. As the porters were preparing to throw down their packs, Pepe Garcia, who marched ahead, announced the print of a South American tiger. The first care of the Indians, on hearing this news, was to send forth a horrible cry and to throng around the marks. The footprints disappeared at the thickest part of the jungle. After an examination of the traces, which resembled a large trefoil, they precipitated themselves on the interpreter-in-chief, representing how impossible it was to camp out in the neighborhood of the dreaded animal. But Pepe Garcia, accustomed as he was by profession to try his strength with the ferocious bear and the wily boar, was not the man to be afraid of a tiger, even of a genuine tiger from Bengal. To prove to the porters how slight was the estimation he placed on the supposed enemy, and also to drill them in the case of similar rencounters, he pushed the whole troop pellmell into the thickest part of the reeds, with the surly order to cut down the canes for sheds. Drawing his own knife, he slashed right and left among the stems, which the Indians, trembling with fear, were obliged to make into sheaves on the spot and transport to the beach selected for the bivouac. Double rows of these arundos, driven into the sand, formed the partitions of the cabins, for which their interwoven leaves made an appropriate thatch. The green halls with matted vaults were picturesque enough; each peon, seeing how easily they were constructed, chose to have a house for himself; and the Tiger's Beach quickly presented the appearance of a camp disposed in a long straight line, of which the timorous Indians occupied the extremity nearest the river.
No "tiger" appeared to justify the apprehensions of the porters; but what was lacking to their fears from beasts with four feet was made up to them by beasts with wings. The night closed in dry and serene. Since leaving Maniri, whether because of the broadening of the valley, the rarity of the water-courses or the decreasing altitude of the hills, the adventurers had been little troubled with fogs at night. The fauna of the region, too, had offered nothing of an alarming complexion, except the footprints of the tiger in question: an occasional tapir or peccary from the woods, and otters and fish from the streams, had attracted the shots of the party, but merely as welcome additions to their game-bags, not as food for their fears. To-night, however, the veritable bugbear of the tropical forest paid them a visit, and left a real souvenir of his presence. As the Indian servants stretched themselves out in slumber under the bright stars and in the partial shelter of their ajoupas, a bat of the vampire species, attracted by the emanations of their bodies, came sailing over them, and emboldened by the silence reigning everywhere, selected a victim for attack. Hovering over the fellow's exposed foot, he bit the great toe, and fanning his prey in the traditional yet inevitable manner by the natural movement of his wings, he gorged himself with blood without disturbing the mozo. The latter, on awakening in the morning, observed a slight swelling in the perforated part, and on examination discovered a round hole large enough to admit a pea. Without rising, the man summoned his companions, who formed a group around him for the purpose of furnishing a certain natural remedy in the shape of a secretion which each one drew out of his ears. With this the patient made himself a plaster for his wound, and appeared to think but little of it. Questioned as to his sensations by the white travelers, who found themselves a good deal more disturbed with the idea of the vampire than they had been by any indications of tigers or wild-boars, the fellow explained that he had felt no sensation, unless it might have been an agreeable coolness of his sand-baked feet. The incident seemed so disagreeable and so likely of recurrence that Colonel Perez ever afterward slept with his feet rolled up in a variety of fantastic draperies, while Mr. Marcoy for several nights retained his boots.
The path along the river-sands would have been voluntarily followed by all the more irresponsible portion of the party, notwithstanding the blinding heats, on account of its smoother footing. The cascarilleros, however, objected that its tufts of canes and passifloras offered no promise for their researches. A compromise was effected. The porters, under the command of Juan of Aragon, were allowed to follow the shore, and were armed with a supply of fish-hooks to induce them to add from time to time to the alarmingly diminished supply of provisions. The grandees of the party followed the Bolivians, whose specialty entitled them to control practically the direction of the route, and plunged into the woods to botanize, to explore and to search for game. A system of conversation by means of shouts and pistol-shots was established between the two divisions. The next night proved the wisdom of this bifurcation. The united booty of earth, air and water, under the form of a squirrel, a pair of toucans and a variety of fish, afforded a meal which the porters described as comida opipara or a sumptuous festival. Lulled and comforted by the sensation which a contented stomach wafts toward the brain, the explorers, after washing their hands and rinsing their mouths at the riverside, betook themselves to a cheerful repose sub jove, the locality offering no reeds of the articulated species with which to construct a shelter.
The party, then, betook themselves to slumber with unusual contentment, repeating the splendid supper in their dreams, with the addition of every famous wine that Oporto and Rheims could dispense, when they were awakened by a sudden and terrible storm. A waterspout stooped over the forest and sucked up a mass of crackling branches. The camp-fire hissed and went out in a fume of smoke. A continuity of thunder, far off at first, but approaching nearer and nearer, kept up a constant and increasing fusillade, to whose reports was soon added the voice of the Cconi, lashed in its bed and bellowing like the sea. The surprising tumult went on in a crescendo. The hardly-interrupted charges of the lightning gave to the eye a strange vision of flying woods and soaring branches. Startled, trembling and sitting bolt upright, the adventurers asked if their last hour were come. The rain undertook to answer in spinning down upon their heads drops that were like bullets, and which for some time were taken for hail. Fearing to be maimed or blinded as they sat, the party crowded together, placing themselves back to back; and, unable to lay their heads under their wings like the birds, sheltered them upon their knees under the protection of their crossed arms. The fearful deluge of heated shot lasted until morning. Then, as if in laughter, the sun came radiantly out, the landscape readjusted its disheveled beauties, and the ground, covered with boughs distributed by the whirlwind, greedily drank in the waters from heaven. Soon there remained nothing of the memorable tempest but the diamonds falling in measured cadence from the refreshed and stiffened leaves.