CHAPTER IV. 



Fishing for a Cayman. — A shark-hook useless. — Sting-rays. — Turtle and 

 . Guana nests.— Numbers of eggs. — Another failure. — Meeting a Jaguar, 

 — Guard against fever. — More failures.- — A native hook and way of 

 baiting. — The Cayman's dinner-bell. — Caught at last. — How to secure 

 the reptile.^Mounting a Cayman. — An improvised bridle. — Skin and 

 teeth of the Cayman. — Embarkment for England. — Collision with the 

 Custom House. 



About an hour before sunset, we reached the place which 

 the two men who had joined us at the falls pointed out 

 as a proper one to find a Cayman. There was a large 

 creek close by, and a sand-bank gently sloping to the 

 water. Just within the forest on this bank, we cleared a 

 place of brushwood, suspended the hammocks from the 

 trees, and then picked up enough of decayed wood for 

 fuel. 



The Indian found a large land tortoise, and thi.s, with 

 plenty of fresh fish which we had in the canoe, afforded a 

 supper not to be despised. 



The tigers had kept up a continued roaring every night 

 since we had entered the Essequibo. The sound was 

 awfully fine. Sometimes it was in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood ; at other times it was far off, and echoed 

 amongst the hills like distant thunder. 



It may, perhaps, not be amiss to observe here^ that when 

 the word tiger is used, it does not mean the Bengal tiger, 



