XXVII
LOST IN THE JUNGLE
THE river carried them on and on. Endless jungle formed two unbroken walls of velvet green. Palm trees of dozens of species waved their long fronds in the breeze. Some were laden with nuts, others with fruits or great bunches of oily berries covered with a shell the size of a large dishpan. An occasional clumsy tapir went crashing through the underbrush. Turtles, some small and some as big as a wash tub, dove from fallen logs into the limpid depths as the canoes drew near. Parrots flew overhead in flocks. Mackaws screeched and scolded from high tree boughs. Fish weighing sixty pounds were common. Small ones, too, leaped from the surface. Porpoises surfaced and dove, cavorted and swam. Wild turkeys lumbered from bough to bough, and a well-aimed bullet would bring one down to be roasted.
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