I stood in a patch of moonlight listening to the baying of a hound--or so I thought: that musical ululation which links man's companion wolf-wards. Then I thought of the packs of wild hunting dogs, the dreaded 'warracabra tigers,' and I turned to the Indian at my elbow, full of hopeful expectation. With his quiet smile he whispered, 'Kunama,' and I knew I had heard the giant tree-frog of Guiana--a frog of size and voice well in keeping with these mighty jungles. I knew these were powerful _beenas_ with the Indians, tokens of good hunting, and every fortunate _benab_ would have its dried mummy frog hung up with the tail of the giant armadillo and other charms. Well might these batrachians arouse profound emotions among the Indians, familiar as they are with the strange beings of the forest. I could imagine the great goggle-eyed fellow sprawled high near the roof of the jungle, clutching the leaves with his vacuum-cupped toes. The moonlight would make him ghostly--a pastel frog; but in the day he flaunted splashes of azure and green on his scarlet body.
At a turn in the trail we squatted and waited for what the jungle might send of sight or sound. And in whispers Nupee told me of the big frog _kunama_, and its ways. It never came to the ground, or even descended part way down the trees; and by some unknown method of distillation it made little pools of its own in deep hollows, and there lived. And this water was thick like honey and white like milk, and when stirred became reddish. Besides which, it was very bitter. If a man drank of it, forever after he hopped each night and clasped all the trees which he encountered, endlessly endeavoring to ascend them and always failing. And yet, if he could once manage to reach a pool of _kunama_ water in an uncut tree and drink, his manhood would return and his mind be healed.
When the Indians desired this _beena_, they marked a tree whence a frog called at night, and in the daytime cut it down. Forming a big circle, they searched and found the frog, and forthwith smoked it and rubbed it on arrows and bow before they went out. I listened gravely and found that it all fitted in with the magic of the night. If an Indian had appeared down the trail, hopping endlessly and gripping the trunks, gazing upward with staring eyes, I should not have thought it more strange than the next thing that really happened.
