The next morning we again beat the pool.Although we had proof of there being a great number of turtles yet remaining, we had very poor success.The old Indians told us it would be so, for the turtles were "ladino" (cunning), and would take no notice of the beating a second day.When the net was formed into a circle, and the men had jumped in, an alligator was found to be inclosed.No one was alarmed, the only fear expressed being that the imprisoned beast would tear the net.First one shouted, "I have touched his head;" then another, "he has scratched my leg;" one of the men, a lanky Miranha, was thrown off his balance, and then there was no end to the laughter and shouting.At last a youth of about fourteen years of age, on my calling to him from the bank to do so, seized the reptile by the tail, and held him tightly until, a little resistance being overcome, he was able to bring it ashore.The net was opened, and the boy slowly dragged the dangerous but cowardly beast to land through the muddy water, a distance of about a hundred yards.Meantime, I had cut a strong pole from a tree, and as soon as the alligator was drawn to solid ground, gave him a smart rap with it on the crown of his head, which killed him instantly.It was a good-sized individual, the jaws being considerably more than a foot long, and fully capable of snapping a man's leg in twain.The species was the large cayman, the Jacareuassu of the Amazonian Indians (Jacare nigra).
On the third day, we sent our men in the boats to net turtles in a larger pool about five miles further down the river, and on the fourth, returned to Ega.
It will be well to mention here a few circumstances relative to the large Cayman, which, with the incident just narrated, afford illustrations of the cunning, cowardice, and ferocity of this reptile.
I have hitherto had but few occasions of mentioning alligators, although they exist by myriads in the waters of the Upper Amazons.Many different species are spoken of by the natives.Isaw only three, and of these two only are common: one, the Jacare-tinga, a small kind (five feet long when full grown), having a long slender muzzle and a black-banded tail; the other, the Jacare-uassu, to which these remarks more especially relate and the third the Jacare-curua, mentioned in a former chapter.
The Jacare-uassu, or large Cayman, grows to a length of eighteen or twenty feet, and attains an enormous bulk.Like the turtles, the alligator has its annual migrations, for it retreats to the interior pools and flooded forests in the wet season, and descends to the main river in the dry season.During the months of high water, therefore, scarcely a single individual is to be seen in the main river.In the middle part of the Lower Amazons, about Obydos and Villa Nova, where many of the lakes with their channels of communication with the trunk stream dry up in the fine months, the alligator buries itself in the mud and becomes dormant, sleeping till the rainy season returns.On the Upper Amazons, where the dry season is never excessive, it has not this habit, but is lively all the year round.It is scarcely exaggerating to say that the waters of the Solimoens are as well stocked with large alligators in the dry season, as a ditch in England is in summer with tadpoles.During a journey of five days which I once made in the Upper Amazons steamer, in November, alligators were seen along the coast almost every step of the way, and the passengers amused themselves, from morning till night, by firing at them with rifle and ball.They were very numerous in the still bays, where the huddled crowds jostled together, to the great rattling of their coats of mail, as the steamer passed.
The natives at once despise and fear the great cayman.I once spent a month at Caicara, a small village of semi-civilised Indians, about twenty miles to the west of Ega.My entertainer, the only white in the place, and one of my best and most constant friends, Senor Innocencio Alves Faria, one day proposed a half-day's fishing with net in the lake--the expanded bed of the small river on which the village is situated.We set out in an open boat with six Indians and two of Innocencio's children.The water had sunk so low that the net had to be taken out into the middle by the Indians, whence at the first draught, two medium-sized alligators were brought to land.They were disengaged from the net and allowed, with the coolest unconcern, to return to the water, although the two children were playing in it not many yards off.We continued fishing, Innocencio and I lending a helping hand, and each time drew a number of the reptiles of different ages and sizes, some of them Jacare-tingas; the lake, in fact, swarmed with alligators.After taking a very large quantity of fish, we prepared to return, and the Indians, at my suggestion, secured one of the alligators with the view of letting it loose amongst the swarms of dogs in the village.An individual was selected about eight feet long-- one man holding his head and another his tail, whilst a third took a few lengths of a flexible liana, and deliberately bound the jaws and the legs.Thus secured, the beast was laid across the benches of the boat on which we sat during the hour and a half's journey to the settlement.We were rather crowded, but our amiable passenger gave us no trouble during the transit.On reaching the village, we took the animal into the middle of the green, in front of the church, where the dogs were congregated, and there gave him his liberty, two of us arming ourselves with long poles to intercept him if he should make for the water, and the others exciting the dogs.The alligator showed great terror, although the dogs could not be made to advance, and made off at the top of its speed for the water, waddling like a duck.We tried to keep him back with the poles, but he became enraged, and seizing the end of the one I held in his jaws, nearly wrenched it from my grasp.We were obliged, at length, to kill him to prevent his escape.
