deep treacherous water. It required steady
nerve to walk this trunk, such as I did not possess, therefore I found
it safer to hang from the levelled bole by my hands and travel across
in that manner. _Tambo_ No. 3 we constructed ourselves, as we did every
other for the rest of the journey. We always selected a site near a
creek that we were following, and cleared away the underbrush so as to
leave an open area of about twenty-five feet square, always allowing
one tree to remain for a corner. A framework of saplings tied together
with strips of _matamata_ bark was raised for a roof, and across this
were laid gigantic leaves of the _murumuru_, twenty-five to thirty
feet long. The hammocks were then strung beneath, and we managed to
keep comparatively sheltered from the nightly rain that always occurs
in these deep forests. After the frugal meal of _pirarucu_ and dried
farinha, or of some game we had picked up during the march, we would
creep into our hammocks and smoke, while the men told hunting stories,
or sang their monotonous, unmelodious tribal songs.

It must have been about two o'clock in the morning when I was awakened
by a terrific roaring which fairly made the forest tremble. Sitting
up and staring fearfully into the darkness, I heard the crashing
of underbrush and trees close upon us. My first thought was of a
hurricane, but in the confusion of my senses, stunned by the impact
of sound, I had few clear impressions. My companions were calling one
another. The noise grew louder, more terrifying. Suddenly the little
world around me went to smash in one mad upheaval. The roof of the
_tambo_ collapsed and fell upon us. At the same instant I felt some
huge body brush past me, hurling me sprawling to the ground. The noise
was deafening, mingled with the shrieks and excited yellings of my men,
but the object passed swiftly in the direction of the creek.

Some one now thought of striking a light to discover the extent of
the damage. The _tambo_ was a wreck; the hammocks were one tangled
mass. Jerome, who had jumped from his hammock when he first heard
the noise, followed the "hurricane" to the creek and soon solved
the mystery of the storm that swept our little camp. He told us,
it was a jaguar, which had sprung upon the back of a large tapir
while the animal was feeding in the woods behind our _tambo_. The
tapir started for the creek in the hope of knocking the jaguar off
its back by rushing through the underbrush; n