154 
GROUPS OR CROCODILES. 
they excite is not owing solely to the interest which the 
naturalist takes in the objects of his study, it is connected 
with a feeling common to all men who have been brought 
up in the habits of civilization. You find yourself in a new 
world, in the midst of untamed and savage nature. Yow 
the jaguar,— the beautiful panther of America— appears 
upon the shore; and now the hocco,* with its black 
plumage and tufted head, moves slowly along the sausos. 
Animals of the most different classes succeed each other. 
"Esse como en el Paradise , ” “It is just as it was m 
Paradise,” said our pilot, an old Indian of the Missions- 
Evervthing, indeed, in these regions recalls to mind the 
state' of the primitive world with its innocence and felicity- 
But in carefully observing the manners of animals among 
t hemselves, we see that they mutually avoid and fear each 
other. The golden age has ceased; and in this Paradise o 
the American forests, as well as everywhere else, sad and 
long experience has taught all beings that benignity i s 
seldom found in alliance with strength. 
When the shore is of considerable breadth, the hedge ot 
sauso remains at a distance from the river. In the inter- 
mediate space we see crocodiles, sometimes to the number 
of eight or ten, stretched on the sand. Motionless, with 
tlieir jaws wide open, they repose by each other, withou 
displaying any of those marks of affection observed m otliei 
•inimais living in society. The troop separates as soon a 
they quit the shore. It is, however, probably composed 0 
one male only, and many females ; for as M. Descourtih- 
who has so much studied the crocodiles of St. Doming 0 - 
observed to me, the males arc rare, because they kill on 
another in fighting during the season of their loves. Thes° 
monstrous creatures are so numerous, that throughout tn 
whole course of the river we had almost at every instant m ' 
or six in view. Yet at this period the swelling of the 
Apure was scarcely perceived ; and consequently hundred 9 
of crocodiles were still buried in the mud of the savannahs- 
About four in the afternoon we stopped to measure a dea 
crocodile which had been east ashore. It was only sixted 
feet eight inches long; some days after M. Bonpland ioiui 
another, a male, twenty-two feet three inches long. LU 
* Ceyx alector, the peacock-pheasant ; C. panxi, the cashew-bird. 
