WANDERINGS IN 



take them up. Daddy Quashi boiled one of them for his 

 dinner, and found it very sweet and tender. I do not see 

 why it should not be as good as frog or veal. 



The day was now declining apace, and the Indian had 

 made his instrument to take the Cayman. It was very 

 simple. There were four pieces of tough hardwood, a foot 

 long, and about as thick as your little finger, and barbed 

 at both ends ; they were tied round the end of the rope, 

 in such a manner, that if you conceive the rope to be an 

 arrow, these four sticks would form the arrow's head ; so 

 that one end of the four united sticks answered to the 

 point of the arrow-head, while the other end of the sticks 

 expanded at equal distances round the rope, thus — 



Now it is evident, that if the Cayman swallowed this, 

 (the other end of the rope, which was thirty yards long, 

 being fastened to a tree,) the more he pulled, the faster 

 the barbs would stick into his stomach. This wooden 

 hook, if you may so call it, was well-baited with the flesh 

 of the Acouri, and the entrails were twisted round the 

 rope for about a foot above it. 



Nearly a mile from where we had our hammocks, the 

 sand-bank was steep and abrupt, and the river very still 

 and deep ; there the Indian pricked a stick into the sand. 

 It was two feet long, and on its extremity was fixed the 

 machine ; it hung suspended about a foot from the water. 



226 



Third 

 Journey. 



