276 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



feet in the position I had held them. We had now another 

 severe struggle for superiority, but he was soon overcome 

 and again remained quiet. While some of the people 

 were pressing upon his head and shoulders, I threw myself 

 on his tan, and hy keeping it down to the sand, prevented 

 him from kicking up another dust. He was finally con- 

 veyed to the canoe, and then to the place where we had 

 suspended our hammocks. There I cut his throat ; and, 

 after breakfast was over, commenced the dissection. 



Now that the affray had ceased, Daddy Quashi played a 

 good finger and thumb at breakfast; he said he found 

 himseK much revived, and became very talkative and 

 useful, as there was no longer any danger. He was a 

 faithful, honest negro. His master, my worthy friend 

 Mr. Edmonstone, had been so obliging as to send out 

 particular orders to the colony, that the Daddy should 

 attend me all the time I was in the forest. He had lived 

 in the wiLds of Demerara with Mr. Edmonstone for many 

 years ; and often amused me with the account of the frays 

 his master had had in the woods with snakes, wild beasts, 

 and runaway negroes. Old age was now coming fast upon 

 him ; he had been an able fellow in his younger days, and 

 a gallant one too, for he had a large scar over his eyebrow, 

 caused by the stroke of a cutlass, from another negro, 

 while the Daddy was engaged in an intrigue. 



The back of the cayman may be said to be almost im- 

 penetrable to a musket-ball, but his sides are not near so 

 strong, and are easily pierced with an arrow ; indeed, were 

 they as strong as the back and the belly, there would be 

 no part of the cayman's body soft and elastic enough to 

 admit of expansion aft^er taldng in a supply of food. 



The cayman has no grinders ; his teeth are entirely made 

 for snatch and swallow ; there are thirty-two in each jaw. 

 Perhaps no animal in existence bears more decided marks 



