File:Our search for a wilderness; an account of two ornithological expeditions to Venezuela and to British Guiana (1910) (14750080874).jpg

Identifier: oursearchforwild00nile (find matches)
Title: Our search for a wilderness; an account of two ornithological expeditions to Venezuela and to British Guiana
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Niles, Blair Beebe, William, 1877-1962
Subjects: Natural history Birds
Publisher: New York, H. Holt and company

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erhythm of this wild music, and it will always be for us thememory-awakening sound of the tropical wilderness. The wealth of life in this region was evident when webegan to explore a river flowing down from the highlandsin the far-distant interior of Venezuela. One could spenda year here and not begin to exhaust the wonders on everyhand. With every high tide the Captain would pull up anchor andshift our craft a little upstream, until at last our keel touchedbottom and we could go no farther. We anchored firmlyand buoyed ourselves by ropes to the nearest trees so as tokeep on an even keel. This, our home for a time, was in alittle bight of the Guarapiche (War-ah-peachy) River, wheretwo tumbled-down, long deserted Indian huts si ill retainedthe name of La Ceiba. We were so close to the left bankthat at low tide we could walk ashore on oars laid downover the mud. Here the birds came and fed and bathed,here the howling monkeys roared over our very heads andMacaws swung and shrieked at us.
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22 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. One night, during a heavy downpour of rain, we were sud-denly awakened by a medley of cries, imprecations, shrieks andyells. Flashing the strong electric bulb we saw through thesheets of rain a very large curiara run afoul of our shore line;piled high with luggage, with several screaming womenperched high on the bundles and boxes. Four pigs, tied feetupward, swelled the chorus in their fear of a watery grave andfour men told us what they thought of us in the present andwhere they hoped we would spend the future centuries untilthe worlds end. Our Captain was out of his hammock in amoment and in tremendous basso profundo he silenced all,save the pigs, and rapidly gave directions to our crew to rowupstream against the swirling current, clear the curiara andshift it outside the danger zone. Between breaths, he inci-dentally described minutely to the terrified natives what heknew would be the ultimate fate of such fools as tried todescend a river on the wron

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