With every high tide the Captain would pull up anchor and shift our craft a little upstream, until at last our keel touched bottom and we could go no farther. We anchored firmly and buoyed ourselves by ropes to the nearest trees so as to keep on an even keel. This, our home for a time, was in a little bight of the Guarapiche (_War-ah-pee’chy_) River, where two tumbled-down, long deserted Indian huts still retained the name of La Ceiba. We were so close to the left bank that at low tide we could walk ashore on oars laid down over the mud. Here the birds came and fed and bathed, here the howling monkeys roared over our very heads and Macaws swung and shrieked at us. [Illustration: FIG. 9. EXPLORING THE CAÑOS IN A DUG-OUT.] One night, during a heavy downpour of rain, we were suddenly awakened by a medley of cries, imprecations, shrieks and yells. Flashing the strong electric bulb we saw through the sheets of rain a very large curiara run afoul of our shore line; piled high with luggage, with several screaming women perched high on the bundles and boxes. Four pigs, tied feet upward, swelled the chorus in their fear of a watery grave and four men told us what they thought of us in the present and where they hoped we would spend the future centuries until the world’s end. Our Captain was out of his hammock in a moment and in tremendous basso profundo he silenced all, save the pigs, and rapidly gave directions to our crew to row upstream against the swirling current, clear the curiara and shift it outside the danger zone. Between breaths, he incidentally described minutely to the terrified natives what he knew would be the ultimate fate of such fools as tried to descend a river on the wrong side. It was a miracle that the whole outfit did not overturn—a narrow dug-out, measuring about twenty feet in length by two in width, striking full force against a rope in the blackness of the storm.