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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Yet They Become The Prey Of The
Crocodiles In The Water, And Of The Tigers On Land.
It is difficult to
conceive, how, being thus persecuted by two powerful enemies, they
become so numerous; but they breed with the same rapidity as the
little cavies or guinea-pigs, which come to us from Brazil.
We stopped below the mouth of the Cano de la Tigrera, in a sinuosity
called la Vuelta del Joval, to measure the velocity of the water at
its surface. It was not more than 3.2 feet* in a second, which gives
2.56 feet for the mean velocity. (* In order to measure the velocity
of the surface of a river, I generally measured on the beach a base of
250 feet, and observed with the chronometer the time that a floating
body, abandoned to the current, required to reach this distance.) The
height of the barometer indicated barely a slope of seventeen inches
in a mile of nine hundred and fifty toises. The velocity is the
simultaneous effect of the slope of the ground, and the accumulation
of the waters by the swelling of the upper parts of the river. We were
again surrounded by chiguires, which swim like dogs, raising their
heads and necks above the water. We saw with surprise a large
crocodile on the opposite shore, motionless, and sleeping in the midst
of these nibbling animals. It awoke at the approach of our canoe, and
went into the water slowly, without frightening the chiguires.
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