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 th