Now, guided by the position of the sun, we held a course due west, our ultimate destination being a far-off region where the Chief expected to find large areas covered with fine caoutchouc trees.  The ground was hilly and interspersed with deeply cut creeks where we could see the ugly heads of the jararaca snakes pop up as if they were waiting for us.  There was only one way of crossing these creeks; this was by felling a young tree across the stream for a bridge.  A long slender stick was then cut and one end placed at the bottom of the creek, when each man seizing this in his right hand steadied himself over the tree to the other side of the deep treacherous water.  It required steady nerve to walk this trunk, such as I did not possess, therefore I found it safer to hang from the levelled bole by my hands and travel across in that manner. Tambo No. 3 we constructed ourselves, as we did every other for the rest of the journey.  We always selected a site near a creek that we were following, and cleared away the underbrush so as to leave an open area of about twenty-five feet square, always allowing one tree to remain for a corner.  A framework of saplings tied together with strips of matamata bark was raised for a roof, and across this were laid gigantic leaves of the murumuru, twenty-five to thirty feet long.  The hammocks were then strung beneath, and we managed to keep comparatively sheltered from the nightly rain that always occurs in these deep forests.  After the frugal meal of pirarucu and dried farinha, or of some game we had picked up during the march, we would creep into our hammocks and smoke, while the men told hunting stories, or sang their monotonous, unmelodious tribal songs.

It must have been about two o’clock in the morning when I was awakened by a terrific roaring which fairly made the forest tremble.  Sitting up and staring fearfully into the darkness, I heard the crashing of underbrush and trees close upon us.  My first thought was of a hurricane, but in the confusion of my senses, stunned by the impact of sound, I had few clear impressions.  My companions were calling one another.  The noise grew louder, more terrifying.  Suddenly the little world around me went to smash in one mad upheaval.  The roof of the tambo collapsed and fell upon us.  At the same instant I felt some huge body brush past me, hurling me sprawling to the ground.  The noise was deafening, mingled with the shrieks and excited yellings of my men, but the object passed swiftly in the direction of the creek.

Some one now thought of striking a light to discover the extent of the damage.  The tambo was a wreck; the hammocks were one tangled mass.  Jerome, who had jumped from his hammock when he first heard the noise, followed the “hurricane” to the creek and soon solved the mystery of the storm that swept our little camp.  He told us, it was a jaguar, which had sprung upon the back of a large tapir while the animal was feeding in the woods behind our tambo.  The tapir started for the creek in the hope of knocking the jaguar off its back by rushing through the underbrush; not succeeding in this, its next hope was the water in the creek.  It had chosen a straight course through our tambo.