[Illustration: EL RIO CHOCON.] Not once all day did we see a place to land; indeed, until we had ascended the river several miles there was no land, so high was the flood. Dense foliage, suitably defended with spines of palm and the no less unpleasant thorns of the guilandina and sarsaparilla, hid what might be disagreeable of animal life along shore; and as we could not land, neither could we plunge into the cool river,—that was already engaged by the alligators. As the sun dropped behind the trees we made fast to a large post in midstream, starting a whole family of little leaf-nosed bats out of a woodpecker’s hole in this dead tree; and as our _comida_ was being laid, I explored more carefully this curious mooring. Water-logged and stranded on the bottom, some twenty feet below us, it was a perfect image of life in death; for every part above the water was covered with a luxuriant growth not its own, and yet perfectly in place. On one side clung three different orchids in seed, a cluster of peperomias in blossom, and a fine cereus, while mosses and ferns quite covered the interstices. We did not at that time know the naughty habits of the bright little bats,[5] or we should not have slept so quietly; as it was, the mosquitoes were very thick, and only our veils protected us. It was a strange bed-chamber. The river, black beneath and around us, was silent enough; for the current hardly rippled against our boat, no wind moved the leaves, and only our own voices broke the stillness while we waited for sleep. Suddenly a sound between a shriek and a roar burst almost over our heads. “Tigre,” muttered Frank as he felt for his rifle. It was only a lion-bird; but its terrible cry was repeated until it seemed to awake all the nocturnal noises of the forests that stretched for fifty miles around us. Howling monkeys (_Mycetes ursinus_), a shrill water-bird, hooting owls, were all easily distinguished by our _montero_; and we slept more tranquilly after his explanation, even though we thought we felt the rough back of an alligator scrape the bottom of our boat. I have heard the real tiger’s howl in the Sumatran jungle; but it was not so terrible as this wretched bird, nor are the tropical nocturnal noises so loud and various in any other place where I have been.