Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 7, 2025
This was the black dog's day. About ten in the morning we came to a long, deep, winding bayou. On the opposite bank stood a capybara, looking like a blunt-nosed pig, its wet hide shining black. I killed it, and it slid into the water. Then I found that the bayou extended for a mile or two in each direction, and the two hunter-guides said they did not wish to swim across for fear of the piranhas.
They had not hurt the clothes, getting in under them, which made it seem likely that there had been no struggle. These man-eating fish are a veritable scourge in the waters they frequent. But it must not be understood by this that the piranhas or, for the matter of that, the New-World caymans and crocodiles ever become such dreaded foes of man as for instance the man-eating crocodiles of Africa.
The head with its short muzzle, staring malignant eyes, and gaping, cruelly armed jaws, is the embodiment of evil ferocity; and the actions of the fish exactly match its looks. I never witnessed an exhibition of such impotent, savage fury as was shown by the piranhas as they flapped on deck. When fresh from the water and thrown on the boards they uttered an extraordinary squealing sound.
Colonel Rondon at the end of his inspection said he had nothing whatever to suggest; that it was extraordinary that Fiala, without personal knowledge of the tropics, could have gathered the things most necessary, with the minimum of bulk and maximum of usefulness. Miller had made a special study of the piranhas, which swarmed at one of the camps he and Cherrie had made in the Chaco.
Hardworking, willing, and tough though the camaradas were, they naturally did not have the skill of northern lumberjacks. We hoped to finish the two canoes in three days. A space was cleared in the forest for our tents. Among the taller trees grew huge-leafed pacovas, or wild bananas. We bathed and swam in the river, although in it we caught piranhas. Carregadores ants swarmed all around our camp.
Such accidents are rare; but they happen with sufficient frequency to justify much caution in entering water where piranhas abound. We frequently came across ponds tenanted by numbers of capybaras. The huge, pig-like rodents are said to be shy elsewhere. Here they were tame. The water was their home and refuge.
The owner sent a boy with my men to show them the best place for fish up the creek, and in the course of the evening sold me a number of fowls, besides baskets of beans and farina. The result of the fishing was a good supply of Jandia, a handsome spotted Siluride fish, and Piranha, a kind of Salmon. Piranhas are of several kinds, many of which abound in the waters of the Tapajos.
At four we made camp at the head of another stretch of rapids, over which the Canadian canoes would have danced without shipping a teaspoonful of water, but which our dugouts could only run empty. Cherrie killed three monkeys and Lyra caught two big piranhas, so that we were again all of us well provided with dinner and breakfast.
Men not making a splashing and struggling are rarely attacked; but if one is attacked by any chance, the blood in the water maddens the piranhas, and they assail the man with frightful ferocity. At Corumba the weather was hot.
We saw men frequently bathing unmolested; but there are places where this is never safe, and in any place if a school of the fish appear swimmers are in danger; and a wounded man or beast is in deadly peril if piranhas are in the neighborhood. Ordinarily it appears that an unwounded man is attacked only by accident.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking