As the great fish lay on the deck, David surveyed it with a triumphant gleam in his eyes. It was fully eight feet long and the captain said it would weigh more than four hundred pounds. The glistening body was a foot and a half broad across the back and two feet wide along the greater part of its length. Silver scales the size of a dollar covered it and those on the lower half were margined with scarlet. The mouth was very large and wide open; the fish was dead. After examining it for some time David’s feeling of exultation gave way to pity for the beautiful creature. It was of such great size, so majestic, and seemed like a fitting denizen of the Amazon, representative of the mystery and the wonder of the mighty river. It seemed so out of place on the deck of the boat. “That is a beauty,” he commented, “but one is enough for a long time. I am not going to kill another unless it is needed very badly. What are we going to do with it?” After taking a number of photographs of the fish, David watched the sailors dress it. Then they cut it into slabs and sprinkled salt over the pieces, which they hung up to dry. “It will keep months now,” Don Marco said. “We shall need most of it, and what is left can be sold further up the river.” They rowed and poled upstream a short distance above the mouth of the creek and anchored for the night. CHAPTER VII WHEN THE RIVER RAN RIOT There were a number of small settlements scattered along both banks of the river, but the trader did not stop at any one of them during the first days after leaving Manaos. He said they were too near the city, to which the people made frequent trips, so they naturally purchased their supplies during these visits, knew the market value of everything, and would not pay the prices he was compelled to charge. It was further upstream, where the inhabitants were more isolated and the distance too great for them to make frequent excursions to Manaos, that he expected to glean his harvest. The second day passed without incident. In one stretch, where the water was too deep for poling, the sailors got out long-handled hooks. They caught these in the overhanging branches and then walked along the board runways, but now they pulled as they walked instead of pushing, as they did when poling, and only half could engage in the work, as there was forest on only one side of them. Therefore, they were divided into two parties of six each, one resting while the other trudged along the wet, slippery boards. It seemed to David as if the branches overhead harbored all the insects in the world. Each time the hooks were thrust into them a shower of ants, leaf hoppers and a multitude of other winged and crawling creatures fell into the boat.