1851.] 
A BLACK JAGUAR. 
241 
lage on the Temi, a branch of the Atabapo, which flows 
into the Orinooko. Finding that here I could get no- 
thing to eat, I could not remain, as I had at first in- 
tended, but was obliged to get my things all carried by 
road to Javita, and determined to walk over the next day 
to see about getting men to do it. In the evening I 
took my gun, and strolled along the road a httle way 
into the forest, at the place I had so long looked forward 
to reaching, and was rewarded by falling in with one of 
the lords of the soil, which I had long wished to en- 
counter. 
As I was walking quietly along I saw a large jet-black 
animal come out of the forest about twenty yards before 
. me, and which took me so much by surprise that I did 
not at all imagine what it was. As it moved slowly on, 
and its whole body and long curving tail came into full 
view in the middle of the road, I saw that it was a fine 
black jaguar. I involuntarily raised my gun to my shoul- 
der, but remembering that both barrels were loaded 
with small shot, and that to fire would exasperate with- 
out killing him, I stood silently gazing. In the middle 
of the road he turned his head, and for an instant paused 
and gazed on me, but having, I suppose, other business 
of his own to attend to, walked steadilv on, and dis- 
appeared in the thicket. As he advanced, I heard the 
scampering of small animals, and the whizzing flight of 
ground birds, clearing the path for their dreaded enemy. 
This encounter pleased me much. I was too much 
surprised, and occupied too much with admiration, to feel 
fear. I had at length had a full view, in his native wilds, 
of the rarest variety of the most powerful and dangerous 
” R 
