ANECDOTE OF A JAGUAR. 945 
that which disappears by being dispersed in the at- 
mosphere. Numberless holes and sinuosities are 
formed in the crevices by the friction of the sand 
and quartz pebbles; but he does not consider that 
any great change is effected in the general form of 
the cataracts by the action of the water, the granite 
being too hard to be worn away to a great extent. 
The Indians assert that the stony barriers preserve 
the same aspect ; but that the partial torrents into 
which the river divides itself are changed in their — 
direction, and carry sometimes more sometimes less 
water towards one or other bank. 
When the rush of the cataracts is heard in the 
plain that surrounds the mission of Atures, one 
imagines he is near a coast skirted by reefs and 
breakers. The noise is thrice as loud by night as 
by day. This circumstance had struck the padre 
and the Indians, and Humboldt attributes it to the 
cessation of the sun’s action, which is productive of 
numberless currents and undulations of the air, im- 
peding the progress of sound by presenting spaces 
of different density. 
The jaguars, which abound every where on the 
Orinoco, are so numerous here that they come into 
the village, and devour the pigs of the poor Indians. 
The missionary relateda striking instance of the fami- 
liarity of these animals :—*‘ Two Indian children, a 
boy and girl eight or nine years of age, were sitting 
among the grass near the village of Atures, in the 
midst of a savannah. It was two in the afternoon 
when a jaguar issued from the forest and approached 
the children, gamboling around them ; sometimes 
concealing itself among the long grass, and again 
springing forward, with his back curved and his 
