316 WILD ANIMALS. 



with peculiar delight. The dogs are, however, frequently worsted, 

 the tapir defending himself with great courage, seizing his enemies 

 with his teeth, and inflicting on them very severe wounds. When 

 thus attacked he usually endeavours to gain the water, where, 

 standing up to his breast, he defies the largest dogs; his assailants 

 being compelled to swim and unable to bring into action their full 

 agility and strength, while the tapir, quietly watching their 

 motions, seizes them successively as they advance, by the back of 

 their necks, and shakes them off from him with the loss of large 

 portions of their flesh." 



A good description of a tapir hunt is given in " Chambers's 

 Journal " for 1854. The writer informs us that it is one of the 

 amusements or employments of the South American Indians. 

 " Not that the flesh of the animal is so eagerly desired by them ; 

 on the contrary, it is dry and has a disagreeable taste, and there 

 are some tribes who will not eat of it, preferring the flesh of 

 monkeys, macaws, and the armadillo. But the part most prized 

 is the thick, tough skin, which is employed by the Indians in 

 making shields, sandals, and various other articles. This is the 

 more valuable in a country where the thick-skinned and leather- 

 yielding mammalia are almost unknown. 



" Slaying the tapir is no easy matter. The creature is shy ; 

 and having the advantage of the watery element, is often enabled 

 to dive beyond the reach of pursuit, and thus escape by concealing 

 itself. Among most of the native tribes of South America, the 

 young hunter who has killed a tapir is looked upon as having 

 achieved something to be proud of." 



Martinhez, described as an intelligent Brazilian trader, gave the 

 writer of the article the account of a hunt in which a whole tribe 

 of Indians, the Jumnas, took part. The following is condensed 

 from the original description. Twenty or thirty canoes or " dug- 

 outs " were filled with the hunters, accompanied by many of the 

 women and boys of the tribe, and a score or two of dogs. " These 

 dogs were curious creatures to look at," Martinhez remarks. " A 

 stranger, ignorant of the customs of the Jumnas, would have been 

 at some loss to account for the peculiarity of their colour. Such 

 dogs I had never seen before. Some were of a bright scarlet, others 



