CHAPTER IV. 



Fishing for a Cayman. A shark-hook useless. Sting-rays. Turtle and 

 Guana nests. Numbers of eggs. Another failure. Meeting a Jaguar. 

 Guard against fever. More failures. A native hook and way of 

 baiting. The Cayman's dinner-bell. Caught at last. How to secure 

 the reptile. Mounting a Cayman. An improvised bridle. Skin and 

 teeth of the Cayman. Embarkment for England. Collision with the 

 Custom House. 



ABOUT an hour before sunset, we reached the place which 

 the two men who had joined us at the falls pointed out 

 as a proper one to find a Cayman. There was a large 

 creek close by, and a sand-bank gently sloping to the 

 water. Just within the forest on this bank, we cleared a 

 place of brushwood, suspended the hammocks from the 

 trees, and then picked up enough of decayed wood for 

 fuel. 



The Indian found a large land tortoise, and this, with 

 plenty of fresh fish which we had in the canoe, afforded a 

 supper not to be despised. 



The tigers had kept up a continued roaring every night 

 since we had entered the Essequibo. The sound was 

 awfully fine. Sometimes it was in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood ; at other times it was far off, and echoed 

 amongst the hills like distant thunder. 



It may, perhaps, not be amiss to observe here, that when 

 the word tiger is used, it does not mean the Bengal tiger. 



