THE AMAZON DISTRICT. 
455 
in fierceness and strength to the tiger of India. Many 
persons are annually killed or wounded by these ani- 
mals. When they can obtain other food, they will 
seldom attack man. The Indians however assert that 
they often face a man boldly, springing forward till 
within a few feet of him, and then, if the man turns, 
they will attack him ; the hunters will sometimes meet 
them thus face to face, and kill thhm with a cutlass. 
They also destroy them with the bow and arrow, for 
which purpose an old knife-blade is used for the head of 
the arrow ; and they say it is necessary not to pull too 
strong a bow, or the arrow will pass completely through 
the body of the animal, and not do him so much injury 
as if it remains in the wound. Tor the same reason, in 
shooting with a gun, they use rough leaden cylinders 
instead of bullets, whieh make a larger and rougher 
wound, and do not pass so readily quite through the 
body. I heard of one case, of a jaguar entering an 
Indian's house, and attacking him in his hammock. 
The jaguar, say the Indians, is the most cunning 
animal in the forest : he can imitate the voice of almost 
every bird and animal so exactly, as to draw them to- 
wards him: he fishes in the rivers, lashing the water 
with his tail to imitate falling fruit, and when the fish 
approach, hooks them up with his claws. He catches 
and eats turtles, and I have myself found the unbroken 
shells, which he has cleaned completely out with his 
paws ; he even attacks the cow-fish in its own element, 
and an eye-witness assured me he had watched one 
dragging out of the water this bulky animal, weighing 
as much as a large ox. 
