_Rose Terry._ (_To be continued._) AFLOAT IN THE FOREST: OR, A VOYAGE AMONG THE TREE-TOPS. CHAPTER VI. THE MONKEY-POTS. "The Gapo?" exclaimed the master of the craft. "What is it, Munday?" "The Gapo?" repeated Tipperary Tom, fancying by the troubled expression on the face of the Indian that he had conducted his companions toward some terrible disaster. "Phwat is it, Munday?" "Da Gapoo?" simultaneously interrogated the negro, the whites of his eyeballs shining in the moonlight. "What be dat?" The Mundurucú made reply only by a wave of his hand, and a glance around him, as if to say, "Yes, the Gapo; you see we're in it." The three interrogators were as much in the dark as ever. Whether the Gapo was fish, flesh, or fowl, air, fire, or water, they could not even guess. There was but one upon the galatea besides the Indian himself who knew the signification of the word which had created such a sensation among the crew, and this was young Richard Trevannion. "It's nothing, uncle," said he, hastening to allay the alarm around him; "old Munday means that we've strayed from the true channel of the Solimoës, and got into the flooded forest,--that's all." "The flooded forest?" "Yes. What you see around us, looking like low bushes, are the tops of tall trees. We're now aground on the branches of a _sapucaya_,--a species of the Brazil-nut, and among the tallest of Amazonian trees. I'm right,--see! there are the nuts themselves!" As the young Paraense spoke, he pointed to some pericarps, large as cocoa-nuts, that were seen depending from the branches among which the galatea had caught. Grasping one of them in his hand, he wrenched it from the branch; but as he did so, the husk dropped off, and the prism-shaped nuts fell like a shower of huge hailstones on the roof of the _toldo_. "Monkey-pots they're called," continued he, referring to the empty pericarp still in his hand. "That's the name by which the Indians know them; because the monkeys are very fond of these nuts." "But the Gapo?" interrupted the ex-miner, observing that the expressive look of uneasiness still clouded the brow of the Mundurucú. "It's the Indian name for the great inundation," replied Richard, in the same tranquil tone. "Or rather I should say, the name for it in the _lingoa-geral_." "And what is there to fear? Munday has frightened us all, and seems frightened himself. What is the cause?" "That I can't tell you, uncle. I know there are queer stories about the Gapo,--tales of strange monsters that inhabit it,--huge serpents, enormous apes, and all that sort of thing. I never believed them, though the _tapuyos_ do; and from old Munday's actions I suppose he puts full faith in them." "The young patron is mistaken," interposed the Indian, speaking a patois of the _lingoa-geral_. "The Mundurucú does not believe in monsters. He believes in big serpents and monkeys,--he has seen them."