214 
WANDERINGS IN 
third it very sweet and tender. I do not see why it should 
JOURNEY. if* 1 
-not be as good as Irog or veal. 
The day was now declining apace, and the Indian 
had made his instrument to take the cayman. It 
was very simple. There were four pieces of tough 
hard wood, a foot long, and about as thick as your 
little finger, and barbed at both ends; they were tied 
round the end of the rope, in such a manner, that if 
you conceive the rope to be an arrow, these four 
sticks would form the arrow’s head : so that one end 
of the four united sticks answered to the point of the 
arrow-head, while the other end of the sticks ex¬ 
panded at equal distances round the rope, thus— 
Now it is evident, that if the cayman swallowed this, 
(the other end of the rope, which was thirty yards 
long, being fastened to a tree,) the more he pulled, 
the faster the barbs would stick into his stomach. 
This wooden hook, if you may so call it, was well- 
baited with the flesh of the acouri, and the entrails 
were twisted round the rope for about a foot above it. 
Nearly a mile from where we had our hammocks, 
the sand-bank was steep and abrupt, and the river 
very still and deep; there the Indian pricked a stick 
into the sand. It was two feet long, and on its 
extremity was fixed the machine ; it hung suspended 
about a foot from the water, and the end of the 
