After mentioning I had been out on the river hunting at night, someone emailed me asking "Isn't it dangerous to be out on the river at night?" so I thought I would address this issue. I will make every attempt to be factual and keep exaggerations and embellishments to a minimum.
Now, I am sure the person asking this questions is aware that, in our Amazon jungle, there are jaguars and anacondas not to mention enough poisonous snakes to keep someone cataloging for as long as they would care to, but as far as I am concerned, the four most dangerous things found along the river at night are a tiny sand gnat, moths, wasps and bats, in that order. Here is how it works. We hunt at night, not because we want an unfair advantage over the poor animals, but most jungle dwellers are nocturnal, so if you want to hunt them, you need to be out at night, and believe me, most of the advantage remains with the animals. Anyway, back to the dangers.
When you float down a river, your light beam attracts small sand bugs. Before you know it, you are paddling down river with a cloud of these tiny insects swirling around you. For some reason, these bugs think it is just the height of excitement to dare each other, and there are millions to take the dare, to fly into your eyes, ears, mouth and up your nose. Before you know it, you are gagging, sneezing and your eyes are running and red from all the kamikaze bugs. Your light also attracts various kinds of jungle moths, with nothing better to do than to run over and join the fun trying to clog the person with the light. In all your wild gyrations trying to defend yourself from the bugs you have worked yourself into a sweat and your body is making salt like a salt factory. It does not take the moths long to catch the scent of this salt and they fall into an ecstasy of licking you, in their excitement fluttering their wings releasing a fine dusting over you some of which clings to the moth's spit on your skin and some of which wafts up to your olfactory senses causing you further discomfort.
Not wanting to miss the fun, a huge wasp, called a Jisiomö, flies over to offer advice. Now if they would just stay on the outside and shout orders, I could handle the wasps, but not to be outdone, they join in the ruckus. Flying around like crazy they dive-bomb you, with their greatest wish to lodge themselves between you and a piece of your clothing. Once inserted, they burrow as deep as possible (Enough said) before beginning to sting, all the time maintaining that it is your fault for trapping them and they are just trying to defend themselves.
You are now one huge ball of swirling, sweating, tearing and sneezing, (almost swearing) bug and human paddling down river and sometimes you get so caught up in the excitement of protecting yourself from these insects that you forget you are hunting. Oh, but the best is still to come!
All it takes now is for one random bat to fly over and observe the show and before you know it he has called all his relatives. Now, it really does become a free for all. In this huge swirling swatting, sweating, gasping, (almost swearing) mess flailing down the river you now have bats whirling and diving, squeaking and fluttering above your head catching bugs. Of course, they think they are on your side. It is enough to drive someone absolutely totally bananas! Why, after half a night of fighting those bugs and bats, a jaguar would be foolish to show himself! By that time the poor hunter is so frustrated with all the sand gnats in his mouth, eyes, nose and ears, river moths landing and licking him, leaving a powdery film that further makes him sneeze, wasp stings and bats scaring him to death that he would jump out of his boat and attack anything, including a jaguar with his bare hands, just to relieve some frustration, because as anyone knows, there just is no getting away from bugs, moths, wasps and bats on the river at night. This is what Patrick McManus called a fine and pleasant misery!
Michael Dawson, Missionary in Venezuela.
