268 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



as they approached; the coloured man fired at him with 

 a ball, hut probably missed him, and the tiger instantly 

 descended, and took off into the woods. I went to the 

 place before dark, and we searched the forest for about 

 half a mile in the direction he had fled, but we could see 

 no traces of him, or any marks of blood ; so I concluded 

 that fear had prevented the man from taking steady aim. 



We spent best part of the fourth night in trying for the 

 cayman, but all to no purpose. I was now convinced that 

 something was materially wrong. We ought to have been 

 successful, considering our vigilance and attention, and 

 that we had repeatedly seen the cayman. It was useless 

 to tarry here any longer ; moreover, the coloured man began 

 to take airs, and fancied that I could not do without him. 

 I never admit of this in any expedition where I am com- 

 mander ; and so I convinced the man, to his sorrow, that 

 I could do without him ; for I paid him what I had agreed 

 to give him, which amounted to eight dollars, and ordered 

 him back in his own curial to Mrs. Peterson's, on the 

 hill at the first falls. I then asked the negro if there 

 were any Indian settlements in the neighbourhood ; he 

 said he knew of one, a day and a half off. We went in 

 quest of it, and about one o'clock the next day the negro 

 showed us the creek where it was. 



The entrance was so concealed by thick bushes that a 

 stranger would have passed it without knowing it to be 

 a creek. In going up it we found it dark, winding, and 

 intricate beyond any creek that I had ever seen before 

 When Orpheus came back with his young wife from Styx, 

 his path must have been similai- to this, for Ovid says 

 it was 



" Arduus, oHiquus, caligine densus opaca," 



and this creek was exactly so. 



