OH, SHOOT! 



instance, at Tigre, a little island hidden se- 

 curely behind a maze of reefs, the inhabitants 

 took to the woods at the rattle of our anchor 

 chains, and it was a long time before we could 

 entice them back. Even then they would 

 have little to do with us and much less with 

 our cameras. The Wisdom was the first ship 

 of size that had ever stopped at Tigre, and 

 it was naturally a terrifying experience to 

 them. 



After we had taken some three thousand 

 feet of film, we discovered there was some- 

 thing wrong with the Wisdom's stern bearing, 

 which made a sound like that of a boy exer- 

 cising his stilts on a tin roof, and having in 

 mind a certain river on the Pacific side where 

 the crocodiles are incredibly thick and very 

 sizable, we turned homeward, stopping once 

 more at Cardi for a final palaver with the chief 

 and for some pictures of a tarpon drive. The 

 tarpon were not running, however, so we 

 missed filming a fleet of cayucas in a churning 

 corral full of giant, leaping fish. The men 

 strike them with harpoons, and the sight is 

 worth seeing; it was one we had counted on, 

 but some vagary had seized the savalo, and 

 none was to be found. 



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