up the River of Tapirs 151 



front; oui* horses were stung too; and we went at a rate 

 that a moment previously I would have deemed impossi- 

 ble over such ground. 



At the close of the day, when we were almost back at 

 the river, the dogs killed a jaguar kitten. There was no 

 trace of the mother. Some accident must have befallen 

 her, and the kitten was trying to shift for herself. She 

 was very emaciated. In her stomach were the remains of 

 a pigeon and some tendons from the skeleton or dried 

 carcass of some big animal. The loathsome berni flies, 

 which deposit eggs in living beings — cattle, dogs, mon- 

 keys, rodents, men — ^had been at it. There were seven 

 huge, white grubs making big abscess-like swellings over 

 its eyes. These flies deposit their grubs in men. In 1909, 

 on Colonel Rondon's hardest trip, every man of the party 

 had from one to five grubs deposited in him, the fly acting 

 with great speed, and driving its ovipositor through cloth- 

 ing. The grubs cause torture; but a couple of cross 

 cuts with a lancet permit the loathsome creatures to be 

 squeezed out. 



In these forests the multitude of insects that bite, 

 sting, devour, and prey upon other creatures, often with 

 accompaniments of atrocious suffering, passes belief. The 

 very pathetic myth of "beneficent nature" could not de- 

 ceive even the least wise being if he once saw for himself 

 the iron cruelty of life in the tropics. Of course "nature" 

 — in common parlance a wholly inaccurate term, by the 

 way, especially when used as if to express a single entity 

 — is entirely ruthless, no less so as regards types than as 

 regards individuals, and entirely indifferent to good or 



