Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 64 of 208 - First - Home
We
There Saw The Largest Jaguar We Had Ever Met With.
The natives
themselves were astonished at its prodigious length, which surpassed
that of any Bengal tiger I had ever seen in the museums of Europe.
The
animal lay stretched beneath the shade of a large zamang.* (* A
species of mimosa.) It had just killed a chiguire, but had not yet
touched its prey, on which it kept one of its paws. The zamuro
vultures were assembled in great numbers to devour the remains of the
jaguar's repast. They presented the most curious spectacle, by a
singular mixture of boldness and timidity. They advanced within the
distance of two feet from the animal, but at the least movement he
made they drew back. In order to observe more nearly the manners of
these creatures, we went into the little skiff that accompanied our
canoe. Tigers very rarely attack boats by swimming to them; and never
but when their ferocity is heightened by a long privation of food. The
noise of our oars led the animal to rise slowly, and hide itself
behind the sauso bushes that bordered the shore. The vultures tried to
profit by this moment of absence to devour the chiguire; but the
tiger, notwithstanding the proximity of our boat, leaped into the
midst of them, and in a fit of rage, expressed by his gait and the
movement of his tail, carried off his prey to the forest. The Indians
regretted that they were not provided with their lances, in order to
go on shore and attack the tiger. They are accustomed to this weapon,
and were right in not trusting to our fire-arms. In so excessively
damp an atmosphere muskets often miss fire.
Continuing to descend the river, we met with the great herd of
chiguires which the tiger had put to flight, and from which he had
selected his prey. These animals saw us land very unconcernedly; some
of them were seated, and gazed upon us, moving the upper lip like
rabbits. They seemed not to be afraid of man, but the sight of our dog
put them to flight. Their hind legs being longer than their fore legs,
their pace is a slight gallop, but with so little swiftness that we
succeeded in catching two of them. The chiguire, which swims with the
greatest agility, utters a short moan in running, as if its
respiration were impeded. It is the largest of the family of rodentia
or gnawing animals. It defends itself only at the last extremity, when
it is surrounded and wounded. Having great strength in its grinding
teeth,* particularly the hinder ones, which are pretty long, it can
tear the paw of a tiger, or the leg of a horse, with its bite. (* We
counted eighteen on each side. On the hind feet, at the upper end of
the metatarsus, there is a callosity three inches long and three
quarters of an inch broad, destitute of hair. The animal, when seated,
rests upon this part. No tail is visible externally; but on putting
aside the hair we discover a tubercle, a mass of naked and wrinkled
flesh, of a conical figure, and half an inch long.) Its flesh has a
musky smell somewhat disagreeable; yet hams are made of it in this
country, a circumstance which almost justifies the name of water-hog,
given to the chiguire by some of the older naturalists. The missionary
monks do not hesitate to eat these hams during Lent. According to
their zoological classification they place the armadillo, the
thick-nosed tapir, and the manatee, near the tortoises; the first,
because it is covered with a hard armour like a sort of shell; and the
others because they are amphibious. The chiguires are found in such
numbers on the banks of the rivers Santo Domingo, Apure, and Arauca,
in the marshes and in the inundated savannahs* of the Llanos, that the
pasturages suffer from them. (* Near Uritucu, in the Cano del Ravanal,
we saw a flock of eighty or one hundred of these animals.) They browze
the grass which fattens the horses best, and which bears the name of
chiguirero, or chiguire-grass. They feed also upon fish; and we saw
with surprise, that, when scared by the approach of a boat, the animal
in diving remains eight or ten minutes under water.
We passed the night as usual, in the open air, though in a plantation,
the proprietor of which employed himself in hunting tigers. He wore
scarcely any clothing, and was of a dark brown complexion like a
Zambo. This did not prevent his classing himself amongst the Whites.
He called his wife and his daughter, who were as naked as himself,
Dona Isabella and Dona Manuela. Without having ever quitted the banks
of the Apure, he took a lively interest in the news of
Madrid - enquiring eagerly respecting those never-ending wars, and
everything down yonder (todas las cosas de alla). He knew, he said,
that the king was soon to come and visit the grandees of the country
of Caracas, but he added with some pleasantry, as the people of the
court can eat only wheaten bread, they will never pass beyond the town
of Victoria, and we shall not see them here. I had brought with me a
chiguire, which I had intended to have roasted; but our host assured
us, that such Indian game was not food fit for nos otros caballeros
blancos, (white gentlemen like ourselves and him). Accordingly he
offered us some venison, which he had killed the day before with an
arrow, for he had neither powder nor fire-arms.
We supposed that a small wood of plantain-trees concealed from us the
hut of the farm; but this man, so proud of his nobility and the colour
of his skin, had not taken the trouble of constructing even an ajoupa,
or hut of palm-leaves. He invited us to have our hammocks hung near
his own, between two trees; and he assured us, with an air of
complacency, that, if we came up the river in the rainy season, we
should find him beneath a roof (baxo techo). We soon had reason to
complain of a system of philosophy which is indulgent to indolence,
and renders a man indifferent to the conveniences of life.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 64 of 208
Words from 64322 to 65380
of 211397