United States or Haiti ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Humboldt and others have observed specimens of the jaguar nearly equal in dimensions to those of the royal tiger himself; and his feats of fierce prowess, in the forests of Spanish America, are scarce eclipsed by those of his congener in the jungles of India. Human beings are frequently his victims, and settlements have been abandoned on account of the dangerous proximity of the jaguars.
"And we'd better take our present horse with us," said Ned, "or other jaguars may come." They remained in their own valley until the appointed time, and then set out on a fairly dark night, each taking his turn at riding the horse. They halted at the crest of a low hill, from which they saw the flash of camp fires. "That's Cos and his army," said Obed.
Their church is also distinguished in the country by some rude paintings which adorn its walls. A narrow border encloses figures of armadilloes, caymans, jaguars, and other animals peculiar to the new world. In this village lives a labourer, Francisco Lozano, who presented a highly curious physiological phenomenon. This man has suckled a child with his own milk.
It is precisely the same with the royal tiger of India, as is instanced in the history of the modern settlement of Singapore. To prevent the increase of the jaguars then, a bounty is offered for their destruction. This bounty is sometimes the gift of the government of the country, and sometimes of the municipal authorities of the district.
"We have numbers of wild horses, and hogs, and goats; and in the woods are tiger-cats, jaguars, tapirs, hyenas, sloths, porcupines, and but you have seen many things already. If you live you will see more. I need not tell you of these things; very soon I will show you some. "The population of my country consists of the descendants of Portuguese settlers, native Indians, and Negroes.
The jaguars, nevertheless, must have come very near during the night, for their fresh footmarks were numerous within a score yards of the place where we slept. In the morning I had a ramble along the borders of the jungle, and found the tracks very numerous and close together on the sandy soil.
Jaguars with scarred backs are frequently killed, and others, not long escaped from their tormentors, have been found so greatly lacerated that they were easily overcome by the hunters. In Kingsley's American Standard Natural History, it is stated that the puma in North California has a feud with the grizzly bear similar to that of the southern animal with the jaguar.
A long ragged haze, far loftier than that on the starboard quarter, signified the Northern Mountains; and far off on the port quarter lay a flat bank of cloud, amid which rose, or seemed to rise, the Cordillera of the Main, and the hills where jaguars lie. Canopus blazed high astern, and Fomalhaut below him to the west, as if bidding us a kind farewell. Orion and Aldebaran spangled the zenith.
The occasional splash and snort of contending alligators, about twenty yards off, varied the monotony of the hours of darkness, while the frogs and cranes and jaguars sang their lullaby. At sunrise an expressive shout in Portuguese set the black slaves on their feet; and, after a hasty breakfast of alligator-tail and farina, they commenced operations.
A small war party could thus work untold harm in a district precisely as a couple of man-eating jaguars may depopulate a forest village in tropical America; and many men and much time had to be spent before they could be beaten into submission, exactly as it needs a great hunting party to drive from their fastness and slay the big man-eating cats, though, if they came to bay in the open, they could readily be killed by a single skilful and resolute hunter.