.1 TROPIC BU EN-SIDE. 99 



man, to get out of the way more than a foot or two. 

 But near akin as they are to the trout, they are still nearer 

 to tlie terrible Pirai,i of the Orinocquan waters, the larger 

 of which snap off the legs of swimming ducks and the 

 fingers of unwary boatmen, while the smaller surround 

 the rash bather, and devour him piecemeal till he drowns, 

 torn by a thousand tiny wounds, in water purpled with his 

 own blood. These little fellows prove their kindred with the 

 Pirai by merely nibbling at the bather's skin, making him 

 tinoie from head to foot, while he thanks Heaven that his 

 visitors are but two inches, and not a foot in length. 



At last we stopped for breakfast. The horses were tethered 

 to a tree, the food got out, and we sat down on a pebbly 

 beach after a bathe in a deep pool, so clear that it looked but 

 four feet deep, though the bathers soon found it to be eight 

 and more. A few dark logs, as usual, were lodged at the 

 bottom, looking suspiciously like alligators or boa-constrictors. 

 The alligator, however, does not come up the mountain 

 streams ; and the boa-constrictors are rare, save on the east 

 coast : but it is as well, ere you jump into a pool, to look 

 whether there be not a snake in it, of any length from 

 three to twenty feet. 



Over the pool rose a rock, carrying a mass of vegetation, to 

 be seen, doubtless, in every such spot in the island, but of a 



1 Serrasalmo. 

 H 2 



