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Show IN THE PRUIEV AL FOREST. 209 as iquiare, and the Rio Negro, astronomical observations, and where the e were wanting, determination by compass of the direction of the rivers, respectively showed us that two lonely mis ion villages might be only a few miles apart, and yet that the monks, when they wished to visit each other, could only do so by spending a day and a half in following the windings of small streams, in canoe hollowed out of the trunks of trees. A striking evidence of the impenetrability of particular parts of the forest is afforded by a trait related by an Indian of the habits of the large American tiger, or panther-like jaguar. While in the Llanos of Varinas and the Meta, and in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, the introduction of European cattle, horses, and mules has enabled the beasts of prey to find an abundant subsi tence-so that, since the fir t di covery of merica, their numbers have increased exceedingly in those extended and treeless grassy steppes-their congeners in the den e fore ts around the sources of the rinoco lead a very different and far less ea y life. In a bivouac near the junction of the a siquiare with the rinoco we had the misfortune of lo ing a large dog, to which we were much attached, as the mo t faithful and affectionate companion of our wandering . But till uncertain whether he had been ac ually killed by the tiger , a faint hope of r covering him induced u , in returning from the mi ion of E m ralda through th warms of mu quitoe by which it is infested, to pend another night at the pot wh rc we had so long sought him in vain. e h ttrd the ri of th jaguar, probably the ry individual which w usp ·t d of the d od, extr moly n ar to u ; and a the clouded sky made a tr nomical ob rvation impo ible, we pa ed part of th night in ill· king our interpreter (lenguaraz) repeat to u the a counts giv n by our nati boat' crew of the tiger of the country. h "bl k jaguar" wa , h y aid, not unfrequently found there; it i he large t and lllO t bloodthir ty variety, with black pot ar ly di tingui hable on it de p, dark-brown kin. It live at th fo t f th mountain of faraguaca and nturan. ne of the di1 n of th urilllund tribe then related to u that jaguar are l d, by th ir l ve f wandering and by their rapacity, to lo e thema lv' in u h imp netrable part of the fore t that they can no long r hunt • l ng th ground, and li e in tead in the tree , where 1 * |