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Updated: June 24, 2025
"And you will come with us," said Lawless, "away from this loneliness?" "It is not lonely," was the reply. "To hear the thrum of the pigeon, the whistle of the hawk, the chatter of the black squirrel, and the long cry of the eagle, is not lonely. Then, there is the river and the pines all music; and for what the eye sees, God has been good; and to kill pumas is my joy.... So, I cannot go.
We also kept the guns ready, not to defend ourselves against our pursuers, for that would have been madness, but to shoot any wild beast which might approach us. "It's as well to be prepared," observed Arthur. "But though there are jaguars and pumas on the mainland, I am doubtful whether they exist in Trinidad."
The grizzly bear is so thoroughly gone that one is seen only by a rare accident; but black bears and pumas are sufficiently numerous to afford fair sport, provided the hunter has a fine outfit of dogs, horses and guides. Of prong-horned antelope, several bands remain, but it is reported that they are steadily diminishing.
Back of the monkeys were the pumas, jaguars, tigers and lions, and their kind; next the bears, all sizes and colors; after them bisons, wild asses, zebras and unicorns; farther on the rhinoceri and hippopotami, and at the far edge of the forest, close to the trees that shut in the clearing, was a row of thick-skinned elephants, still as statues but with eyes bright and intelligent.
And then old age and bitterness, when he sat, with his great mane of hair as white as the Spanish-dagger blossoms and his fierce, pale-blue eyes, on the shaded gallery at Cibolo, growling like the pumas that he had slain. He snapped his fingers at old age; the bitter taste to life did not come from that.
But before the first year was out, they yearned very much to return to civilisation, and this desire was very natural. But there were other reasons that influenced them besides the mere ennui of the wilderness. The lives of themselves and their children were constantly in danger from jaguars, pumas, and poisonous reptiles. Even man himself might at any moment appear as their destroyer.
However, we crossed in safety, and spent a very pleasant day at Santiago, seeing all the sights of that city, though Jerry and I agreed that we would rather have been in the mountains shooting guanacoes or hunting pumas, so I daresay would old Surley. We got back in good time to Valparaiso.
Lawless noticed that Pourcette seemed scarcely to take any aim at all, so swift and decisive was his handling of the gun. They skinned the deer and cached them, and took up the journey again. For four days they travelled and hunted alternately. Pourcette had shot two mountain lions, but they had seen no pumas. On the morning of the fifth day they came upon the valley where the gold was.
My father and mother did it, and so do I. Apart from these, there lives nothing in the forest that a full-grown bear has any cause to fear. He goes where he pleases and does what he likes, and nobody ventures to dispute his rights. With a cub, however, it is different. I had heard my father and mother speak of pumas, or mountain lions, and I knew their smell well enough and did not like it.
He is very fond of deer flesh; and as there are still plenty of deer in the forest reserves in the Far West, the puma has managed to survive there. But in the Middle West, where there are fewer deer, there are hardly any pumas. The puma is seldom able to attack cattle.
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