the trees were agitated as if by a high wind, and the earth
itself seemed to shake beneath my feet. Indescribably horrible
were my sensations at that moment; I was deafened, and would
possibly have been maddened had I not, as by a miracle, chanced
to see a large araguato on a branch overhead, roaring with open
mouth and inflated throat and chest.

It was simply a concert of howling monkeys that had so terrified
me! But my extreme fear was not strange in the circumstances;
since everything that had led up to the display--the gloom and
silence, the period of suspense, and my heated imagination--had
raised my mind to the highest degree of excitement and
expectancy. I had rightly conjectured, no doubt, that my unseen
guide had led me to that spot for a purpose; and the purpose had
been to set me in the midst of a congregation of araguatos to
enable me for the first time fully to appreciate their
unparalleled vocal powers. I had always heard them at a
distance; here they were gathered in scores, possibly
hundreds--the whole araguato population of the forest, I should
think--close to me; and it may give some faint conception of the
tremendous power and awful character of the sound thus produced
by their combined voices when I say that this animal--miscalled
"howler" in English--would outroar the mightiest lion that ever
woke the echoes of an African wilderness.

This roaring concert, which lasted three or four minutes, having
ended, I lingered a few minutes longer on the spot, and not
hearing the voice again, went back to the edge of the wood, and
then started on my way back to the village.