272 Wild Beasts 



anecdotes of brute intelligence and character must neces- 

 sarily distrust them. Their authors always, either directly 

 or by implication, put inference in the place of observa- 

 tion, or they start with a hypothesis, the tendency of 

 which is to assimilate evidence, and often, no doubt un- 

 consciously, fit facts to their own preconceptions. It is 

 hoped that the records of daily observation here made use 

 of for the purpose of sketching traits of character, may 

 not prove to be without some interest and value, and that 

 their fragmentary and incomplete form will witness to the 

 fact that nothing is given which seemed to be either specu- 

 lative or unauthentic. 



One sultry morning as the author sat af ease in his 

 sala, an Indian entered and said he had heard that the 

 Senor delighted in wild beasts, so that having by the help 

 of God, some saints, and several friends, slain the mother 

 of this little lion in the Golden Mountains, he had brought 

 it there as a mark of respect, and would like to have seven 

 Spanish dollars. Here he unrolled his serape and depos- 

 ited a ball of indistinctly striped and spotted fur upon the 

 floor. In that manner this puma of pumas came into the 

 keeping of his guardian. 



The latter impressed with a sense of the responsibilities 

 attaching to the position in which he was placed, at once 

 sprinkled the cub with red wine and called it Gato, a pro- 

 cedure it resented as if the spirit of Constantine Caprony- 

 mus himself had entered into its sinful little body. The 

 rage of infancy, however, does not endure, and Gato 

 shortly " serened himself," to use the idiom of the coun- 

 try, where these things took place. He inspected his new 



