The Puma, or Lion of America 57 



Centenera, affirms that of two thousand persons in 

 the town eighteen hundred perished of hunger. 

 During this unhappy time, beasts of prey in large 

 numbers were attracted to the settlement by the 

 effluvium of the corpses, buried just outside the 

 pallisades; and this made the condition of the 

 survivors more miserable still, since they could 

 venture into the neighbouring woods only at the 

 risk of a violent death. Nevertheless, many did so 

 venture, and among these was the young woman 

 Maldonada, who, losing herself in the forest, strayed 

 to a distance, and was eventually found by a party 

 of Indians, and carried by them to their village. 



Some months later, Captain Ruiz discovered 

 her whereabouts, and persuaded the savages to 

 bring her to the settlement ; then, accusing her of 

 having gone to the Indian village in order to betray 

 the colony, he condemned her to be devoured by 

 wild beasts. She was taken to a wood at a dis- 

 tance of a league from the ttjrwn, and left there, tied 

 to a tree, for the space of two nights and a day. 

 A party of soldiers then went to the spot, expecting 

 to find her bones picked clean by the beasts, but 

 were greatly astonished to find Maldonada still 

 alive, without hurt or scratch. She told them that 

 a puma had come to her aid, and had kept at her 

 side, defending her life against all the other beasts 

 that approached her. She was instantly released, 

 and taken back to the town, her deliverance through 

 the action of the puma probably being looked on as 

 a direct interposition of Providence to save her. 



Rui Diaz concludes with the following paragraph, 

 in which he affirms that he knew the woman Mai- 



