Here and there a bright-colored flower glowed brilliantly against the darker background and from the interior of the tangled, matted screen came subdued cries and screams. A flock of green parrots, flying low, passed overhead and then dived into the jungle on the other side and disappeared. There were fully a hundred birds in the party, but they flew two by two, with a peculiar fanning motion of the wings, like a duck’s. One of the branches on the side nearest the steamer stirred and someone shouted “monkeys.” David looked but saw only the swaying vegetation which moved as if agitated by a gust of wind. “I am sorry I missed them. I have never seen a wild monkey,” he said. “You will see plenty of them before long; and not only see but get real well acquainted with them,” Rogers volunteered. “You mean they are tame and come to the camps in the forests?” “Not exactly. You will have to live on them.” “What? Eat monkeys?” David asked in dismay. “Certainly. Everyone does in the bush. The Indians eat everything--monkeys, crocodiles, snakes and lizards. And if you want to live out in the wilderness you shall have to do as they do because there is no other way out of it. You will be thankful for whatever you find whether you like it or not.” “But the rivers must be full of fish,” David reminded him. “They are. Catching them is another proposition though. Besides, there is nothing in the world a white man becomes so tired of as fish if he eats it day after day.” “Why worry?” David said it bravely, but a sigh escaped him. “If that is the custom here I guess I can get used to it.” The prospect of having to eat monkeys, as he knew them in the zoo at home, was not a pleasant one and the thoughts that were in his mind were reflected in the expression on his face. Rogers gave him a sharp glance, then walked away; he was finding his task a difficult one. The first stop was at Pará, and as the steamer carried a quantity of freight for that port and was to remain two days there was ample time for sightseeing ashore. The feel of solid ground under his feet was very welcome to David; and to enter the low-lying city beside the river was like stepping into fairyland. How different everything was from the life and living conditions of a temperate clime. Instead of the tall buildings and wide streets bustling with humanity there were blocks of low, white structures, narrow, crooked streets lined with drooping, swaying palms; and the people, of every shade from white to black, seemed to take things in a leisurely manner. It was warm--disagreeably warm at midday and during the early afternoon hours--but David was too interested in his surroundings to take much note of the heat. He tramped the streets and tried to see everything that unfolded itself before his eyes.