CHAPTER XVIL 



CnJTtfbilcS (continued). 

 IV. TOUCHING THE FEROCITY OF CROCODILES. 



DAMPIER assumes that caymans never attack man, and 

 that they never make victims, except amongst those 

 who provoke and irritate them. It has frequently 

 happened to him to drink in ponds filled with these 

 animals, and although they were then close to him, 

 they never attempted to injure him. 



M, de la Borde says, that in the neighbourhood of 

 Cayenne, the negroes sometimes take caymans five or 

 six feet long, tie their legs, and that the animals suffer 

 themselves to be handled and carried without attempt- 

 ing to bite. From excess of prudence, the jaws are 

 sometimes tied up, or a large metal plate fixed in the 

 mouth. It is better still in some of the rivers of 

 St. Domingo. The pursued animal hides his head and 

 a part of his body in a hole. A slip-knot is fixed to 

 one of his hind feet, and many negroes, pulling at the 



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