GUATEMALA. 
48 
six dozen — are all yolk, and very delicious. 1 Being good 
swimmers, they drop from their perches over the river 
when alarmed, and after a fall sometimes of sixty to 
eighty feet the splash is suggestive of broken ribs, or at 
least a total loss of wind; but they scramble nimbly up 
the banks under the overhanging shrubs, and are lost in 
the forest. Like the chameleon, they change color, and 
from green of various hues become greenish gray when 
taken from the trees. We had much less difficulty than 
Columbus and his companions experienced in adding these 
u serpentes ” to our cosmopolitan bill of fare. 
In the afternoon a boom across the river showed the 
neighborhood of mahogany-cutters, and a short row 
above this brought us to the head of navigation for our 
large boat, and we made fast to a tree on the right bank, 
where there was no clearing nor any easy way to land, 
although we could see that the banks were some ten feet 
above the water, and steep. Leaving the 66 Progreso ” in 
the cook’s charge, we continued up stream in the little 
cayuco until we broke a paddle and had to return, — not, 
however, until we had made two landings. 
Once up the steep and slippery bank, we found the 
land level, and in the dense forest there was no under¬ 
growth. It always seems odd to a stranger in the 
1 “These serpentes are lyke unto crocodiles, saving in bigness; they call 
them guanas. Unto that day none of owre men durste aduenture to taste of 
them, by reason of theyre horrible deformitie and lothsomnes. Yet the Acl- 
elantado being entysed by tbe pleasantnes of the king’s sister, Anacaona, deter¬ 
mined to taste the serpentes. But when he felte the flesh thereof to he so 
delycate to his tongue, he fel to amayne without al feare. The which thyng 
his companions perceiuing,'were not behynde hym in greedyness; insomuch 
that they had now none other talke than of the sweetnesse of these serpentes, 
which they affirm to be of more pleasant taste than eyther our phesantes or 
partriches.” Peter Martyr , decad. i. booh v. (Eden's English translation ). 
