JÖuT THE Thief Gets Caught. 
130 
i'ii«lihiy with one of these on the slope at the aiiiiiuil tliut \va« w ailing' 
for him with oi^en jaws, drove it down its throat. Although the kaiman 
clenched its mouth vigorously and l)it deep into tlie pole, one would judge 
from the deep grunting, that it did not appreciate the trick. Two other 
Itold Indians had in the meantime sneaked upon it from behind and now 
let their Mows fall on tlie root of the tail. With a wild snapping the 
animal raised itself u]> at each Idow, and wrenched open its horrible 
mouth, only to ]'eceive immediately another pole driven in by his 
courageous combatant. That the root of the tail, which the Indians 
maintain is the sent of life for the kaiman, ia one of its most sensitive 
parts, was shewn by the fact that with every blow struck here it would 
hold itself up in rage, but ])ay no attention to the innumeralile hits that 
fell on its head and neck. After a long and strenuous fight, the thief 
who stole my tapir skeletou was finally shot: the girth of its body was 
4 ft. 4 in., length U ft. in., that of' the head 3 ft. 6 in. The tail 
measured 5 ft. G in. As the sliortness of the time did not permit of my 
skinning it, I had the carcass drawn up into the l)ush where the carrion 
crows would save me the trouble of doing it, and have tlie job well finished 
on my return. 
340. The number of fresli jaguar tracks wliich we found every 
morning on the sandbank, shewed that it must be quite a favourite 
resort from wliich neither our presence nor that of our nnmerous fires 
would th-[\e tliem away. According to our ol»servations the junction 
of the Zuruma and Ootinga is 8° 54' 37" lat. N. and 60° ,19' long. W. 
Immediately at the line of communication of the two streams, the 
tem])erature of the water of the Zuruma is 1° colder than that of the 
Totinga. 
341. We had nevei- loftked forward fo the resumption of our journey 
so anxiously as we did here. Daybreak on ord October was hailed 
with delight: to-day we were; to be released from purgatory, and 
our corials soon skimmed their way up the Cotinga. X"umerous 
crags that puslu'd their Avay up through thxi river-bed in all directions 
obliged us to be continually crossing, so that we made but slow' progress 
in reaching the two mountains Piriwai and Maikangpati, between which 
the river forced its passage. Fpon the summit of the 400-ft. high 
Piriwai, — its slopes covered with huge granite boulders in between which, 
a luxuriant but not dense vegetation shot its way, — stood two 
immense granite columns, like a cou])le of huLie watch-towers, that 
reminded me very much of the romnti or Ta(|uiari rocks of the Twasinki 
ranges on the Essequibo. The lonely Waiking-Ep]>ing (Deer Mountain ) 
towered over the savannah X.W. of Piriwai while a rocky stratum tliat 
cropped out above the surface on Piriwai also made its way through the 
river-bed and gave rise in front of us to a foaming and tumultuous sheet 
of water as well as to one of the most dangerous and roughest series of 
cataracts that we had hitherto had to contend with. After the name 
of the mountain, the Indians called them the Piriwai Rapids. Before 
reaching them my attention Avas drawn to an animal rising out of the 
Avater, Avhich I recognised as a dol])liin : tiie presence of sucli an animal 
above the formidable cataracts of the Cotinga was just as unexpected to 
