THEIR FEROCITY. 135 



every zone, in America as in Egypt, this animal attains the 

 same size. The species so abundant in the Apure, the 

 Orinoco,* and the Rio de la Magdalena, is not a cayman, 

 but a real crocodile, analagous to that of the Nile, having 

 feet dentated at the external edges. When it is recollected 

 that the male enters the age of puberty only at ten years, 

 and that its length is then eight feet, we may presume that 

 the crocodile measured by M. Bonpland was at least twenty- 

 eight years old. The Indians told us, that at San Fernando 

 scarcely a year passes, without two or three grown-up 

 persons, particularly women who fetch water from the river, 

 oeing drowned by these carnivorous reptiles. They related 

 to us the history of a young girl of Uritucu, who by singular 

 intrepidity and presence of mind, saved herself from the jaws 

 of a crocodile. When she felt herself seized, she sought the 

 eyes of the animal, and plunged her fingers into them with 

 such violence, that the pain forced the crocodile to let her 

 go, after having bitten off the lower part of her left arm. 

 The girl, notwithstanding the enormous quantity of blood she 

 lost, reached the shore, swimming with the hand that still 

 remained to her. In those desert countries, where man is 

 ever wrestling with nature, discourse daily turns on the best 

 means that may be employed to escape from a tiger, a boa, or 

 a crocodile ; every one prepares himself in some sort for the 

 dangers that may await him. "I knew," said the 

 girl of Uritucu coolly, "that the cayman lets go his hold, 

 you push your fingers into his eyes." Long after my 

 return to Europe, I learned that in the interior of Africa the 

 negroes know and practise the same means of defence. Who 

 does not recollect, with lively interest, Isaac, the guide of 

 the unfortunate Mungo Park, who was seized twice by a 

 crocodile, and twice escaped from the jaws of the monster, 

 having succeeded in thrusting his fingers into the creature's 

 eyes while under water. The African Isaac, and the young 

 American girl, owed their safety to the same presence of 

 mind, and the same combination of ideas. 



The movements of the crocodile of the Apure are sudden 

 and rapid when it attacks any object ; but it moves with 

 the slowness of a salamander, when not excited by rage 



* It is the arva of the Tamanac Indians, the amana of the Maypurf 

 Indians, the Crocudilus acutus of Cuvier. 



young 

 , if 



