canoes and montarias occasionally coming down the stream, and saw them hauled up on shore, while their owners were cooking their breakfast in the woods; and once they came upon a solitary old Indian in a very curious position.  They had entered a small stream in order to procure a few turtles’ eggs, of which there were many in that place buried in the sand-banks.  On turning a point where the stream was narrow and overhung with bushes and trees, they beheld a canoe tied to the stem of a tree, and a hammock slung between two branches overhanging the water.  In this an old Indian lay extended, quite naked and fast asleep!  The old fellow had grown weary with paddling his little canoe; and, finding the thicket along the river’s banks so impenetrable that he could not land, he slung his hammock over the water, and thus quietly took his siesta.  A flock of paroquets were screaming like little green demons just above him, and several alligators gave him a passing glance as they floundered heavily in the water below; but the red man cared not for such trifles.  Almost involuntarily Martin began to hum the popular nursery rhyme—­

“Hushy ba, baby, on the tree top;
When the wind blows the cradle will rock.”

“Arrah, if he was only two foot lower, its thirty pair o’ long teeth would be stuck into his flank in wan minute, or I’m no prophet,” said Barney, with a broad grin.

“Suppose we give him a touch with the paddle in passing,” suggested Martin.

At this moment Barney started up, shaded his eyes with his hand, and, after gazing for a few seconds at some object ahead of the canoe, he gave utterance to an exclamation of mingled surprise and consternation.

CHAPTER XV

THE GREAT ANACONDA’S DINNER—­BARNEY GETS A FRIGHT—­TURTLES’ EGGS, OMELETS AND ALLIGATORS’ TAILS—­SENHOR ANTONIO’S PLANTATION—­PREPARATIONS FOR A GREAT HUNT

The object which called forth the cry from our Irish friend, as related in the last chapter, was neither more nor less than a serpent of dimensions more enormous than Barney had ever before conceived of.  It was upwards of sixteen feet long, and nearly as thick as a man’s body; but about the neck it was three times that size.  This serpent was not, indeed, of the largest size.  In South America they grow to nearly forty feet in length.  But it was fabulously gigantic in the eyes of our adventurers, who had never seen a serpent of any kind before.

“Oh!” cried Martin, eagerly, “that must be an anaconda.  Is it not?” he inquired, turning to the old trader.

“Yees; it dead,” was the short reply.

“So it is!” cried Martin, who, on a nearer approach, observed that the brute’s body was cut in two just below the swelling at the neck.

“Now, did ye iver,” cried Barney with increased surprise, “see a sarpint with a cow’s horns growin’ out at its mouth?  Put ashore, old boy; we must have a Vestigation o’ this remarkable cratur.”