SOUTH AMERICA. 
215 
rope was made fast to a stake driven wel] into the THIRD 
JOURNEY 
sand 
The Indian then took the empty shell of a land 
tortoise, and gave it some heavy blows with an axe. 
I asked, why he did that. ITe said, it was to let the 
cayman hear that something was going on. In fact, 
the Indian meant it as the cayman’s dinner bell. 
Having done this, we went back to the hammocks, 
not intending to visit it again till morning. During 
the night, the jaguars roared and grumbled in the 
forest, as though the world was going wrong with 
them, and at intervals we could hear the distant 
cayman. The roaring of the jaguars was awful; 
but it was music to the dismal noise of these hideous 
and malicious reptiles. 
About half-past five in the morning, the Indian Succeed 
stole off silently to take a look at the bait. On mg a 
arriving at the place he set up a tremendous shout. c,l}liian 
We all jumped out of our hammocks, and ran to 
him. The Indians got there before me, for they had 
no clothes to put on, and I lost two minutes in look¬ 
ing for my trowsers and in slipping into them. 
We found a cayman, ten feet and a half long, fast 
