with a peculiar motion of his broad shoulders which suggested that the
usually grave savage was convulsed with internal laughter.

"Ghosts and crokidiles!--what's dat?" gasped Quashy, staring up into the
tree, and ready to fire at the first visible object.

Tiger also looked up, made a peculiar sound with his mouth, and held out
his hand.

Immediately a huge bird, responding to the call, descended from the tree
and settled on his wrist.

Quashy's brief commentary explained it all.

"Purrit!"

It was indeed the Indian's faithful pet-parrot, which he had taught thus
to raise the war-cry of his tribe, and which, having bestowed its entire
affections on its master, was in the habit of taking occasional flights
after him when he went away from home.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

IN WHICH INGENUITY, COMICALITY, FEROCITY, ECCENTRICITY, FECUNDITY, AND
SOME OTHER "ITIES" IN MAN AND BEAST ARE MENTIONED.

Plain sailing, fair weather, perpetual calm and sunshine are not the lot
of any man or woman here.

The weather, that fertile source of human intercourse, is occasionally
boisterous as well as serene in the regions of Peru and Bolivia. A day
or two after the events recounted in the last chapter our travellers
experienced a sudden change.

We have said that they had come to a part of the river where there were
occasional stretches of sand, and here they had evidence of the
improvident nature of Indians, in the number of turtle-shells found
lying on the sands with parts of the animals still adhering to them.

On one particular spot they found a space, of about seventy yards in
diameter completely covered with the upper and under shells of turtles.
These had evidently been cut asunder violently with hatchets, and
reddish-brown furrows in the sands told where streams of blood had
flowed during the massacre.

"What wanton slaughter!" exclaimed Lawrence, as he and his friends stood
looking at the scene.

"And it is not long since it was done," said Pedro, "for the flesh--at
least what's left of it--is still fresh."

"Ugh, you brutes!" exclaimed Quashy, referring to a number of urubu
vultures which stood on the shells, all more or less gorged, some still
tearing sleepily at the meat, others standing in apoplectic apathy,
quite unable to fly.

They counted upwards of three hundred dead turtles, and this carnage, it
was afterwards ascertained, had been the work of only a dozen or so of
Indians--not for food, but for the s