172 INDIAN GIRL — CROCODILES. 



and advanced southward. As they proceeded they 

 found the country more dusty, and destitute of herb- 

 age. The palm-trees gradually disappeared. From 

 eleven in the morning till sunset the thermometer 

 kept at 95°. Although the air was calm at the 

 height of eight or ten feet, the ground was swept by 

 little currents which raised clouds of dust. About 

 four in the afternoon, they observed in the savanna 

 a young Indian girl, twelve or thirteen years of age, 

 quite naked, lying on her back, exhausted with fa- 

 tigue and thirst, and with her eyes, nostrils, and 

 mouth filled with dust. Her breathing was sterto- 

 rous, and she was unable to answer the questions 

 put to her. Happily one of the mules was laden 

 with water, the application of which to her face 

 aroused her. She was at first frightened, but by de- 

 grees took courage, and conversed with the guides. 

 As she could not be prevailed upon to mount the 

 beasts of burden, nor to return to Urituco, she was 

 furnished with some water ; upon which she re- 

 sumed her way, and was soon separated from her 

 preservers by a cloud of dust. 



In the night they forded the Rio Urituco, which is 

 filled with crocodiles remarkable for their ferocity, 

 although those of the Rio Tisnao, in the neighbour- 

 hood, are not at all dangerous. They were shown 

 a hut or shed, in which a singular scene had been 

 witnessed by their host of Calabozo, who, having 

 slept in it upon a bench covered with leather, was 

 awakened early in the morning by a violent shaking, 

 accompanied with a horrible noise. Presently an 

 alligator, two or three feet long, issued from under 

 the bed, and darted at a dog lying on the threshold, 

 but missing him, ran towards the river. When the 

 spot where the bench stood was examined, the dried 

 mud was found turned up to a considerable depth, 

 where the alligator had lain in its state of torpidity, 

 or summer sleep. The hut being situated on the 

 edge of a pool, and inundated during part of the 



