Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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We Were
Shown A Hut, Or Rather A Kind Of Shed, In Which Our Host Of Calabozo,
Don Miguel Cousin, Had Witnessed A Very Extraordinary Scene.
Sleeping
with one of his friends on a bench or couch covered with leather, Don
Miguel was awakened early in the morning by a violent shaking and a
horrible noise.
Clods of earth were thrown into the middle of the hut.
Presently a young crocodile two or three feet long issued from under
the bed, darted at a dog which lay on the threshold of the door, and,
missing him in the impetuosity of his spring, ran towards the beach to
gain the river. On examining the spot where the barbacoa, or couch,
was placed, the cause of this strange adventure was easily discovered.
The ground was disturbed to a considerable depth. It was dried mud,
which had covered the crocodile in that state of lethargy, or
summer-sleep, in which many of the species lie during the absence of
the rains in the Llanos. The noise of men and horses, perhaps the
smell of the dog, had aroused the crocodile. The hut being built at
the edge of the pool, and inundated during part of the year, the
crocodile had no doubt entered, at the time of the inundation of the
savannahs, by the same opening at which it was seen to go out. The
Indians often find enormous boas, which they call uji, or
water-serpents,* in the same lethargic state. (* Culebra de agua,
named by the common people traga-venado, the swallower of stags.
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