In our forests scarcely a single tone is heard after sunset; but in the tropical zone many loud voices celebrate the night, where for hours after the sun has disappeared, the cicadæ, toads, frogs, owls, and goatsuckers chirrup, cry, croak, howl, and wail. The quietest hours are from midnight until about three in the morning. Complete silence, however, occurs only during very short intervals; for there is always some cause or other that prompts some animal to break the stillness. Sometimes the din grows so loud that one might fancy a legion of evil spirits were celebrating their orgies in the darkness of the forest. The howling of the aluates, the whine of the little sapajous, the snarl of the duruculi, the roaring of the jaguar, the grunt of the pecari, the cry of the sloth, and the shrill voices of birds, join in dreadful discord. Humboldt supposes the first cause of these tumults to be a conflict among animals, which, arising by chance, gradually swells to larger dimensions. The jaguar pursues a herd of pecaris or tapirs, which break wildly through the bushes. Terrified by the noise, the monkeys howl, awakening parrots and toucans from their slumber; and thus the din spreads through the wood. A long time passes before the forest returns to its stillness. Towards the approach of day the owls, the goatsuckers, the toads, the frogs, howl, groan, and croak for the last time; and as soon as the first beams of morning purple the sky, the shrill notes of the cicadæ mix with their expiring cries. [Illustration: BOTOCUDO INDIANS ATTACKING A JAGUAR.] CHAPTER VII. THE WILD INDIANS OF TROPICAL AMERICA. The wild Forest Tribes--Their Physical Conformation and Moral Characteristics--Their Powers of Endurance not inferior to those of other Races--Their stoical indifference--Their Means of Subsistence--Fishing--Hunting--The Wourali Poison--Ornaments-- Painting--Tattooing--Religion--The Moon, a Land of Abundance-- The Botuto--The Piaches--The Savage Hordes of Brazil and Guiana-- The Ottomacas--Dirt-eaters--Their Vindictive Ferocity and War Stratagems--The extinct Tribe of the Atures--A Parrot the last Speaker of their Language--Their Burial-cavern--The Uaupes Indians--Their large Huts--Horrid Custom of Disinterment--The Macus--The Purupurus--The ‘Palheta’--The Mandrucus--Singular resemblance of some of the Customs of the American Indians to those of Remote Nations--The Caribs--The Botocudos--Monstrous distension of the Ears and Under-lip--Their Bow and Arrow--Their Migrations-- Bush-rope Bridge--Botocudo Funeral--‘Tanchon,’ the Evil Spirit.