CHAPTER III 

 A JAGUAR-HUNT ON THE TAQUARY 



THE morning after our arrival at Corumba I asked 

 Colonel Rondon to inspect our outfit; for his experience 

 of what is necessary in tropical travelling has been gained 

 through a quarter of a century of arduous exploration in 

 the wilderness. It was Fiala who had assembled our food- 

 tents, cooking-utensils, and supplies of all kinds, and he 

 and Sigg, during their stay in Corumba, had been putting 

 everything in shape for our start. Colonel Rondon at the 

 end of his inspection said he had nothing whatever to sug- 

 gest; that it was extraordinary that Fiala, without per- 

 sonal knowledge of the tropics, could have gathered the 

 things most necessary, with the minimum of bulk and 

 maximum of usefulness. 



Miller had made a special study of the piranhas, which 

 swarmed at one of the camps he and Cherrie had made 

 in the Chaco. So numerous were they that the members 

 of the party had to be exceedingly careful in dipping up 

 water. Miller did not find that they were cannibals to- 

 ward their own kind; they were "cannibals'* only in the 

 sense of eating the flesh of men. When dead piranhas, 

 and even when mortally injured piranhas, with the blood 

 flowing, were thrown among the ravenous living, they were 

 left unmolested. Moreover, it was Miller's experience, the 

 direct contrary of what we had been told, that splashing 

 and a commotion in the water attracted the piranhas, 



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