MONKS PLAYING CAKDS. 141 



tures. As soon as they perceived the enemy they raised 

 themselves on their fore paws, bent their backs, and 

 lifted up their heads, opening their wide jaws. They 

 turned continually, though slowly, towards their assailant 

 to show him their teeth, which even when the animal 

 had but recently issued from the egg, were very long and 

 sharp. Often while the attention of a young crocodile 

 was wholly engaged by one of the zamuros, another 

 seized the favourable opportunity for an unforeseen at- 

 tack. He pounced on the animal, grasped him by the 

 neck, and bore him off to the higher regions of the air. 



They found among the Indians assembled at Pararuma 

 some white men, who had come from Angostura to 

 purchase the turtle-butter. After having wearied the 

 travellers for a long time with their complaints of the 

 bad harvest, and the mischief done by the tigers among 

 the turtles, at the time of laying their eggs, they con- 

 ducted them beneath an ajoupa, that rose in the centre 

 of the Indian camp. They found there the missionary- 

 monks of Carichana and the Cataracts seated on the 

 ground playing at cards, and smoking tobacco in long 

 pipes. From their ample blue garments, their shaven 

 heads, and their long beards, they might have been mis- 

 taken for natives of the East. These poor priests re- 

 ceived them in the kindest manner, giving them every 

 information necessary for the continuance of their voy- 

 age. They had suffered from tertian fever for some 

 months ; and their pale and emaciated aspect easily con- 

 vinced the travellers that the countries they were about 

 to visit were not without danger to their health. 



The Indian pilot who had brought them from San 

 Fernando de Apure as far as the shore of Pararuma, was 



