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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Some Months Before
Our Arrival, A Jaguar, Which Was Thought To Be Young, Though Of A
Large Size, Had Wounded A Child In Playing With Him.
The facts of this
case, which were verified to us on the spot, are not without interest
in the history of the manners of animals.
Two Indian children, a boy
and a girl, about eight and nine years of age, were seated on the
grass near the village of Atures, in the middle of a savannah, which
we several times traversed. At two o'clock in the afternoon, a jaguar
issued from the forest, and approached the children, bounding around
them; sometimes he hid himself in the high grass, sometimes he sprang
forward, his back bent, his head hung down, in the manner of our cats.
The little boy, ignorant of his danger, seemed to be sensible of it
only when the jaguar with one of his paws gave him some blows on the
head. These blows, at first slight, became ruder and ruder; the claws
of the jaguar wounded the child, and the blood flowed freely. The
little girl then took a branch of a tree, struck the animal, and it
fled from her. The Indians ran up at the cries of the children, and
saw the jaguar, which then bounded off without making the least show
of resistance.
The little boy was brought to us, who appeared lively and intelligent.
The claw of the jaguar had torn away the skin from the lower part of
the forehead, and there was a second scar at the top of the head.
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