214 A NATURALIST IX THE GUIANAS 



with a powerful pair of jaws. The men for hours after- 

 wards unfeehngly chaffed the sufferer, and laughed at his 

 lamentations. Close to the spot where the tapir was killed 

 an island, consisting of open stretches of rock with patches 

 of wood between, divides the stream into two channels. 

 "We stopped upon this island for the day, so that the men 

 might salt the meat and spread it out to dry. The scene 

 of gluttony T had witnessed at Para was repeated, the 

 men eating as if they had bets on the result. I 

 noticed also that the hoofs of this tapir, which happened 

 to be a male, were divided, marked, and carefully stowed 

 away, as had been done in the case of the other animal. 

 The men explained that the scrapings of the tapir's hoofs 

 possess extraordinary medicinal properties, but that par- 

 ticular attention must be paid to sex when administering 

 this wonderful remedy. On no account should the scrapings 

 from the hoofs of the male tapir be given to a man, nor 

 should those from the female animal be administered 

 to a woman. All the virtue possessed by this strange 

 medicine is annulled if the important question of sex be 

 disregarded. That is why the men were always careful to 

 mark the hoofs so as to be able to distinguish between 

 the masculine and feminine remedies afterwards. Many 

 other supernatural properties are attributed to these 

 worthless scrapings ; such, for instance, is the belief that 

 when a dog will not hunt he ought to be given a dose 

 of tapir medicine. I was unable to find out how these 

 absurd superstitions had arisen. 



On the following day we were again lucky in killing 

 another tapir. We had left our camping-place early and 

 had paddled for about an hour against the strojig current, 

 keeping to the left, when we saw a tapir standing in 

 shallow water on the opposite bank. The men lost no 



