WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 19 



friends. I immediately offered to knock him down 

 for his cowardice, and he shrank back, begging 

 that I would be cautious, and not get myself wor- 

 ried ; and apologising for his own want of resolu- 

 tion. My Indian was now in conversation with the 

 others, and they asked me if I would allow them 

 to shoot a dozen arrows into him, and thus disable 

 him. This would have ruined all. I had come 

 above three hundred miles on purpose to get a 

 cayman uninjured, and not to carry back a muti- 

 lated specimen. I rejected their proposition with 

 firmness, and darted a disdainful eye upon the 

 Indians. 



** Daddy Quashi was again beginning to remon- 

 strate, and I chased him on the sand-bank for a 

 quarter of a mile. He told me afterwards, he 

 thought he should have dropped down dead with 

 fright, for he was firmly persuaded, if I had caught 

 him, I should have bundled him into the cayman's 

 jaws. Here then we stood, in silence, like a calm 

 before a thunder-storm. *Hoc res summa loco. 

 Scinditur in contraria vulgus.' They wanted to 

 kill him, and I wanted to take him alive. 



* ' I now walked up and down the sand, revolving 

 a dozen projects in my head. The canoe was at a 

 considerable distance, and I ordered the people to 

 bring it round to the place where we were. The 

 mast was eight feet long, and not much thicker 

 than my wrist. I took it out of the canoe, and 

 wrapped the sail round the end of it. Now it ap- 

 peared clear to me, that if I went down upon one 

 knee, and held the mast in the same position as 

 the soldier holds his bayonet when rushing to the 

 charge, I could force it down the cayman's throat, 



