Though the alligator punctuated every adventurous hour of that memorable voyage in Nicaragua, we children were more interested in our Darwinian friends, the monkeys.  They were of all shades and shapes and sizes; they descended in troops among the trees by the river side; they called to us and beckoned us shoreward; they cried to us, they laughed at us; they reached out their bony arms, and stretched wide their slim, cold hands to us, as if they would pluck us as we passed.  We exchanged compliments and clubs in a sham-battle that was immensely diverting; we returned the missiles they threw at us as long as the ammunition held out, but captured none of the enemy, nor did the slightest damage—­as far as we could ascertain.

Often the parrots squalled at us, but their vocabulary was limited; for they were untaught of men.  Sometimes the magnificent macaw flew over us, with its scarlet plumage flickering like flame.  Oh, but those gorgeous birds were splashes of splendid color in the intense green of that tropical background!

There were islands in this river,—­islands that seemed to have no shores, but lay half submerged in mid-stream, like huge water-logged bouquets.  There were sand-bars in the river, and upon these we sometimes ran, and were brought to a sudden stand-still that startled us not a little; then we backed off with what dignity we might, and gave the unwelcome obstructions a wide berth.

Perhaps the most interesting event of the voyage was “wooding up.”  A few hours after we had entered the river our steamer made for the shore.  More than once in her course she had rounded points that seemed to block the way; and occasionally there were bends so abrupt that we found ourselves apparently land-locked in the depths of a wilderness which might well be called prodigious.  Now it was evident that we were heading for the shore, and with a purpose, too.  As we drew nearer, we saw among the deep tangle of leaves and vines a primitive landing.  It was a little dock with a thatched lodge in the rear of it and a few cords of wood stacked upon its end.  There were some natives here—­Indians probably,—­with dark skins bared from head to foot; they wore only the breech-clout, and this of the briefest.  Evidently they were children of Nature.

Having made fast to this dock, these woodmen speedily shouldered the fuel and hurried it on board, while they chanted a rhythmical chant that lent a charm to the scene.  We were never weary of “wooding up,” and were always wondering where these gentle savages lived and how they escaped with their lives from the thousand and one pests that haunted the forest and lay in wait for them.  Every biting and stinging thing was there.  The mosquitoes nearly devoured us, especially at night; while serpents, scorpions, centipedes, possessed the jungle.  There also was the lair of larger game.  It is said that sharks will pick a white man out of a crowd of dark ones in the sea; not that he is a more tempting and toothsome morsel—­drenched with nicotine, he may indeed be less appetizing than his dark-skinned, fruit-fed fellow,—­but his silvery skin is a good sea-mark, as the shark has often confirmed.  So these dark ones in the semi-darkness of the wood may, perhaps, pass with impunity where a pale-face would fall an easy prey.