50 NARRATIVEOFAN 



CHAP, which this ferocious animal is never glutted. It has even 

 XVIII. happened that the jaguar has carried off young negro 

 women at work in the field, and too frequently their 

 children. This contemptible animal, as it is called and 

 mifreprefented by fome author?^ will beat down a wild 

 boar with a fingle flroke of its paw, and even feize by 

 the throat the ftrongeft ftallion that ever was mounted 

 in Guiana; while its favage nature, and thirft after blood, 

 is fuch that it cannot be tamed : it will, on the con- 

 trary, bite the very hand that feeds it, and very often 

 devours its own offspring; ftill this creature is not a 

 match for the aboma-fnake^ which, when it comes 

 wdthin its reach, has the power of crulhing it to a jelly 

 in but few moments. 



The next is the couguar, called in Surinam the red 

 iyger. — This indeed may, with more propriety, be com- 

 pared to a greyhound, for its Hiape, though not for its 

 Hze ; being much larger than the dog which it refembles 

 in make, but it is not in general fo large and heavy as the 

 jaguar. The colour of this animal is a reddifh brown ; 

 the breaft and-belly are a dirty white, with long hair, and 

 not fpotted ; the tail an earthy colour, the extremity 

 black ; the head is fmall, the body thin, the limbs long,, 

 with tremendous whitifh claws ; the teeth are alfo very 

 large, the eyes prominent, and fparkling like ftars. This 

 creature is equally ferocious with the former. 



Another of the fame fpecies is the tyger-cat, which 

 is extremely beautiful. This animal is not much, larger 



than. 



