ade twenty and a half kilometres. We passed signs of
Indian habitation. There were abandoned palm-leaf shelters on both
banks. On the left bank we came to two or three old Indian fields,
grown up with coarse fern and studded with the burned skeletons of
trees. At the mouth of a brook which entered from the right some
sticks stood in the water, marking the site of an old fish-trap. At
one point we found the tough vine hand-rail of an Indian bridge
running right across the river, a couple of feet above it. Evidently
the bridge had been built at low water. Three stout poles had been
driven into the stream-bed in a line at right angles to the current.
The bridge had consisted of poles fastened to these supports, leading
between them and from the support at each end to the banks. The rope
of tough vines had been stretched as a hand-rail, necessary with such
precarious footing. The rise of the river had swept away the bridge,
but the props and the rope hand-rail remained. In the afternoon, from
the boat, Cherrie shot a large dark-gray monkey with a prehensile
tail. It was very good eating.

We camped on a dry level space, but a few feet above, and close
beside, the river--so that our swimming-bath was handy. The trees were
cleared and camp was made with orderly hurry. One of the men almost
stepped on a poisonous coral-snake, which would have been a serious
thing, as his feet were bare. But I had on stout shoes, and the fangs
of these serpents--unlike those of the pit-vipers--are too short to
penetrate good leather. I promptly put my foot on him, and he bit my
shoe with harmless venom. It has been said that the brilliant hues of
the coral-snake when in its native haunts really confer on it a
concealing coloration. In the dark and tangled woods, and to an only
less extent in the ordinary varied landscape, anything motionless,
especially if partially hidden, easily eludes the eye. But against the
dark-brown mould of the forest floor on which we found this coral-
snake its bright and varied coloration was distinctly revealing;
infinitely more so than the duller mottling of the jararaca and other
dangerous snakes of the genus lachecis. In the same place, however, we
found a striking example of genuine protective or mimetic coloration
and shape. A rather large insect larva--at least we judged it to be a
larval form, but we were none of us entomologists--bore a resemblance
to a partially curled dry leaf which was fairly startling. T