52 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



food and very hungry. On reaching a stream they dyna- 

 mited it, and waded in to seize the stunned fish as they 

 floated on the surface. One man, Lieutenant Pyrineus, 

 having his hands full, tried to hold one fish by putting its 

 head into his mouth; it was a piranha and seemingly 

 stunned, but in a moment it recovered and bit a big sec- 

 tion out of his tongue. Such a hemorrhage followed that 

 his life was saved with the utmost difficulty. On another 

 occasion a member of the party was off by himself on a 

 mule. The mule came into camp alone. Following his 

 track back they came to a ford, where in the water they 

 found the skeleton of the dead man, his clothes uninjured 

 but every particle of flesh stripped from his bones. Whether 

 he had drowned, and the fishes had then eaten his body, 

 or whether they had killed him it was impossible to say. 

 They had not hurt the clothes, getting in under them, 

 which made it seem likely that there had been no struggle. 

 These man-eating fish are a veritable scourge in the waters 

 they frequent. But it must not be understood by this 

 that the piranhas — or, for the matter of that, the New- 

 World caymans and crocodiles — ever become such dreaded 

 foes of man as for instance the man-eating crocodiles of 

 Africa. Accidents occur, and there are certain places where 

 swimming and bathing are dangerous; but in most places 

 the people swim freely, although they are usually careful 

 to find spots they believe safe or else to keep together and 

 make a splashing in the water. 



During his trips Colonel Rondon had met with various 

 experiences with wild creatures. The Paraguayan caymans 

 are not ordinarily dangerous to man; but they do some- 

 times become man-eaters and should be destroyed when- 



