Catching Wild Animals 



155 



There were bats enough already in the cave, and 

 rats and mice were common about the house and 

 garden, while the agouti, a rat-like animal over a 

 foot long, often eaten by poor people, was sufficiently 

 abundant in the sugarcane field. 



The boa constrictor gave them the greatest trou- 

 ble. It was twenty feet long and very powerful, 

 although sluggish and not poisonous. Instead of 



^<^~^:^-' 



-^^^^gf^- 



Fig. 54. A boa constrictor. 



bringing it home, they built a cage for it out in the 

 woods where it was caught, and left it there. It 

 was a case of Mahomet going to the Mountain. The 

 juba, the blind snake, and other smaller snakes were 

 kept there also, in separate cages, so as to have all 

 the serpents together. 



The giant manatee, which sometimes visited the 



