130 



JOURNEY FROM VILLA DE ST. SALVADOR 



opportunities for a kind of chace wholly new to us, that of the jacarS, or 

 alligator of this country, ( crococUlus sclerops). This animal* lives in 

 all the rivers of Brazil, particularly in those which have not much fall, 

 but on the contrary, marshy places and stagnant creeks. The latter 

 may be immediately recognised by certain large-leaved aquatic plants, 

 such as the mj}?iphcL'a, pontederia, and others, which shoot up from 

 the bottom, and spread their leaves horizontally on the surface. It is 

 among these that the jacare must be sought ; there the practised ob- 

 server discovers its head, which it raises, M-atching for prey, above 

 the water. It is sometimes found also in the middle of rivers, espe- 

 cially in nearly stagnant, or slowly-running streams. Thickets of the 

 slender stems of a tree eighteen or twenty feet high, with large, 

 woolly, heart-shaped leaves (probably a croton)^ very nearly akin to 

 the tridesmys ( monxcia), cover the banks of the Paraiba. Between 

 them you may softly approach the bank, and perceive the jacare 

 with its head above the surface, warming itself in the sun, and lurking 

 for prey. As we at first rode to the river without thinking of these 

 animals, and did not observe the necessary silence, we merely heard 

 the noise they made in plunging down ; but on approaching 

 cautiously to see whence the noise proceeded, we perceived that it 

 was made by the jacares. With my double-barrelled gun, loaded 

 with shot of a middhng size, I wounded one of these animals in the 

 neck ; it raised itself, turned on its back, and sunk. Though I was 

 certain that I had given it a mortal wound, I could not devise means 

 to raise it from the bottom of the water ; and in the same manner we 

 shot, in a short time, three or four others, without being able to 

 come at one of them. We had not gone far, when we heard some 

 shot fired before us, and found, on riding to the spot, that two 



* It seems doubtful whether Azara lias described in his Jacare the crocodilus sclerops : his 

 descriptions are too vague, and he also states the colour very differently. 



