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But the alligators were beforehand with them, for before they could reach the spot where the capsized canoe floated, bottom up, surrounded by her crew, two piercing shrieks were followed by the abrupt disappearance of two Indians beneath the surface of the water; and a few seconds later a third Indian vanished in the same terrible manner. "The caimans are among them!" shouted Stukely to Dick.

Apart from the savages, the general impression of Guiana remaining with me is that of a great hot-house, in which everything was as improbably huge as in one of Gustave Dore's illustrations where I came across apricots as big as my head, and caimans ten yards long.

The alligators of the Magdalena or `caimans, as they are there called frequently destroy natives, who by any unlucky accident may have fallen into the waters frequented by them.

We ran into the mouth of a little stream and lay to, and the men were almost instantly asleep. Our party went out exploring; our landing place was a heap of shells, whether artificial or natural I am not sure; the place was a favorite spot with hunters of caimans, or alligators, and we found numbers of almost complete skeletons and skulls lying on the banks.

Already the water-spout had passed, to carry on its destructive work elsewhere. It seemed to empty the lake in its passage, by continually drawing up the water into itself. The OMBU now began to drift rapidly along, impelled by wind and current. All the caimans had taken their departure, except one that was crawling over the upturned roots, and coming toward the poor refugees with wide open jaws.

His palm-thatched rancho, or cottage, stood at a little distance from the bank of the river, at a point where it was much infested by caimans as the country around was wild and thinly settled. The vaquero had a wife and one child, a daughter who was about six or seven years old; and being a pretty little girl, and the only one, she was of course very dear to both the parents.

The boys picked up quantities of scales and teeth, and it was interesting to see how the new conical teeth grow up under the hollows of the old ones. We killed a duck or two for supper. One or two large caimans were seen, as we strolled along. Finally, I insisted upon the men starting again. We were traversing a system of great lagoons which opened one into another.

"Alligators! alligators!" replied Wilson. The whole foot of the tree appeared to be surrounded by these formidable animals of the Saurian order. By the glare of the flames, they were immediately recognized by Paganel, as the ferocious species peculiar to America, called CAIMANS in the Spanish territories.

These boatmen sometimes carry rifles, for the purpose of shooting the caimans; yet there are but few destroyed in this way, as the bogadores are too much occupied in navigating their crafts; and, moreover, it is a very difficult thing to kill an alligator by a shot. You can only do it by sending the bullet into his eye, as the rest of his body is impervious even to a musket-ball.

Glenarvan could fancy the caimans' teeth were tearing it up from the soil; for as he and his companions held on, each clinging firmly to the other, they felt the towering OMBU give way, and the next minute it fell right over with a terrible hissing noise, as the flaming branches touched the foaming water. It was the work of an instant.