Cuap. XL. A BLACK TIGER. 305 
rain was still coming down, having changed to a steady drizzle. Our 
men were all returned from the pool, having taken only four Tracajas. 
The business which had brought Cardozo hither being now finished, 
we set out to return to Ega, leaving the sentinels once more to their 
solitude on the sands. Our return route was by the rarely frequented 
north-easterly channel of the Solimoens, through which flows part of the 
waters of its great tributary stream, the Jupura. We travelled for five 
hours along the desolate, broken, timber-strewn shore of Barid. The 
channel is of immense breadth, the opposite coast being visible only as 
a long low line of forest. At three o’clock in the afternoon we doubled 
the upper end of the island, and then crossed towards the mouth of the 
Teffé by a broad transverse channel running between Baria and another 
island called Quanarti. There is a small sand-bank at the north- 
westerly point of Baria called Jacaré; we stayed here to dine, and 
afterwards fished with the net. A fine rain was still falling, and we had 
capital sport, in three hauls taking more fish than our canoe would con- 
veniently hold. They were of two kinds only, the Surubim and the 

Surubim (Pimelodus tigrinus). 
Piraepiétia (species of Pimelodus), very handsome fishes, four feet in 
length, with flat spoon-shaped heads, and prettily-spotted and striped 
skins. 
On our way from Jacaré to the mouth of the Teffé we haa a little 
adventure with a black tiger or jaguar. We were paddling rapidly past 
a long beach of dried mud, when the Indians became suddenly excited, 
shouting, ‘‘Ecui Jauareté; Jauari-pixtina!” (Behold the jaguar, the 
black jaguar!) Looking ahead we saw the animal quietly drinking at 
the water’s edge. Cardozo ordered the steersman at once to put us 
ashore. By the time we were landed the tiger had seen us, and was 
retracing his steps towards the forest. On the spur of the moment, 
and without thinking of what we were doing, we took our guns (mine 
was a double-barrel, with one charge of B B and one of dustshot) and 
gave chase. The animal increased his speed, and reaching the forest 
border dived into the dense mass of broadleaved grass which formed its 
frontage. We peeped through the gap he had made, but, our courage 
being by this time cooled, we did not think it wise to go into the 
thicket after him. The black tiger appears to be more abundant than 
the spotted form of jaguar in the neighbourhood of Ega. ‘The most 
certain method of finding it is to hunt, assisted by a string of Indians 
20 
