230 
HAUNT OT JAGUAltS. 
is highly picturesque. It is called Bisco del G'uchivano. 
The river rises at the distance of seven leagues south- 
west, at the foot of the mountain of the Brigantine, and it 
forms some beautiful cascades before it spreads through 
the plain of Cumanacoa. 
We visited several times a small farm, the Conuco of 
Bermudez, opposite the Bisco del Ouehivauo, where tobacco, 
plantains, and several species of cotton-trees,* * * § are culti- 
vated in the moist soil ; especially that tree, the cotton of 
which is of a nankeen colour, and which is so common in the 
island of Margareta.f The proprietor of the farm told us 
that the. Bisco or crevice was iidiabited by jaguar tigers. 
These animals pass the day in caverns, and roam around 
human habitations at night. Being well fed, they grow to 
the length of six feet. One of them had devoured, in the 
preceding year, a horse belonging to the farm. He dragged 
his prey on a line moonlight night, across the savannah, to 
the foot of a ceibaj of an enormous size. The groans of the 
dying horse awoke the slaves of the farm, who went out 
armed with lances and machetes. || The tiger, crouching 
over his prey, awaited their approach with tranquillity, and 
fell only after a long and obstinate resistance. This fact, 
and many others verified on the spot, prove that the great 
jaguar § of Terra Birina, like the jaguarete of Paraguay, aud 
the real tiger of Asia, does not flee from man when it is 
dared to close combat, and when not intimidated by the 
number of its assailants. Naturalists at present admit that 
Buffon was entirely mistaken with respect to the greatest 
of the feline race of America. What Buffon says of the 
cowardice of tigers of the new continent, relates to the 
small ocelots, At the Orinoco, the real jaguar of America 
* Gossypiura uniglandulosum, improperly called lierbaceum, and 
G. barbadense. 
+ G. religiosum. X Bombax Ceiba: five-leaved silk-cotton tree. 
|j Great knives, with very long blades, like a coutean de chasse. No 
one enters the woods in the torrid zone without being armed with a 
machete, not only to cut his way through the woods, but as a defence 
against wild beasts. 
§ Felis onca, Lin., which Buffon called pant hire oillee , and which lie 
believed came from Africa. 
Felis pardulis, Lin., or the chibiguazu of Azara, different from the 
Ylateo-Ocelotl, or tiger-cat of the Aztecs. 
