HUNTING THE JAGUAR 81 



socks. He was lithe, well-built, dark-skinned, 

 dark-eyed, and had a tangle of dark hair. In a 

 word, I liked Jack Haley the moment I clapped 

 my eyes on him; and when he laughed there was 

 a mischievous twinkle in his eye, and his teeth 

 gleamed with their very whiteness. 



Day broke over the River Berbice. The sun 

 rose pale yellow, and the dirty, oily waters re- 

 flected the brazen glimmer of the sky. Over the 

 unresponsive desolation carne the chug-chug-chug 

 of a gasoline launch. Haley, the writer and the 

 hounds were sliding upstream that is, when the 

 engine didn't refuse to work. 



The scene was unvaried and monotonous; 

 along the banks grew a fringe of brush, beyond 

 this sloped away the vast savannah lands that 

 were, during the rainy season, for the most part 

 submerged. In the late afternoon we slid into 

 a small quay and tied up. A little ranch house 

 overlooked the rr. T er and stood on four large posts, 

 which raised it some fifteen feet from the ground. 

 It consisted only of one room, with an enclosed, 

 latticed veranda in the front, where we swung 

 our hammocks. Below were two or three native, 

 palm-leaf-thatched huts. In these lived the men 

 who looked after the cattle; also a coolie boy 



