Titan Volume 24 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 edition. Excerpt: ... the most perfect silence prevailed, broken only by the occasional cry of the tiger as he ranged the adjoining woods, or the plash of a large fish or alligator in the neighbouring stream. The circumstances under which the tales I had heard were related; the glimmering of the fire, which cast a ruddy glare upon the trunks of the trees around and on the water of the river; the dark and gloomy forest in the Vicinity, and its fierce inhabitants, whose voices now and again sounded on the night air; and the wailing cry of the little bird, the subject of the romantic legend related to ine--all these things tended to banish sleep from my eyes, and when l at last fell into a troubled slumber, I was visited by many confused dreams of being lost in the pathless woods, attacked by alligators, and pursued by tigers. These visions in their turn died away, and I awoke at last in broad daylight to find the Indians again busy with their nets, and just hauling on shore a large number of fish. Such was the character of my adventures while absent from Para, to which place, however, I soon afterwards returned, without meeting with anything very much worthy of attention, but more than ever astonished and delighted with the exuberant beauty and fertility of that portion of Brazil which I thus for a time had visited. A SONG IN THE GROTTO. It would occupy too much space were I to relate every incident that occurred during the period when we were cruising in search of the sperm-whale. It is necessary to select sueh as are most interesting in character, lest the simple narrative should become tedious. Since we sailed from the coast of South America we had passed over an immense tract of the vast world of waters lying between that coast and the numerous islands to the.