266 ON THE AMAZON
are so numerous all over the Upper Amazonian basin.
To seize the trunk with his four hands, to climb with the
agility of a clown who is acting the monkey, to hook on
with his prehensile tail to the first branches, which stretched
away horizontally at forty feet from the ground, and to
hoist himself to the top of the tree, to the point where the
higher branches just bent beneath his weight, was only sport
to the active guariba, and the work of but a few seconds.
Up there, installed at his ease, he resumed his interrupted
repast, and gathered the fruits which were within his reach.
Torres, like him, was much in want of something to eat and
drink, but it was impossible! His pouch was flat, his flask
was empty.
However, instead of retracing his steps he directed them toward the tree, although the position taken up by the monkey was still more unfavorable for him. He could not dream for one instant of climbing the ficus, which the thief would have quickly abandoned for another. And all the time the miserable case rattled at his ear.
Then, in his fury, in his folly, Torres apostrophized the guariba. It would be impossible for us to tell the series of invectives in which he indulged. Not only did he call him a half-breed, which is the greatest of insults in the mouth of a Brazilian of white descent, but curiboca-that is to say, half-breed negro and Indian, and of all the insults that one man can hurl at another in this equatorial latitude curiboca is the cruelest.
But the monkey, who was only a humble quadruman, was simply amused at what would have revolted a repre- sentative of humanity.
Then Torres began to throw stones at him again, and bits of roots and everything he could get hold of that would do for a missile. Had he the hope to seriously hurt the monkey? No! he no longer knew what he was about. To tell the truth, anger at his powerlessness had deprived him of his wits. Perhaps he hoped that in one of the movements which the guariba would make in passing from branch to branch the case might escape him; perhaps he thought that if he con- tinued to worry the monkey he might throw it at his head.
But no! the monkey did not part with the case, and, holding it with one hand, he had still three left with which to move.
Torres, in despair, was just about to abandon the chase
