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Show 158 RIO PARANA. Oct. 1833. General Beatson in his account of the island of St. Helena, has remarked that variations in climate sometimes appear to be the effect of the operation of some very general cause. He says (page 43), "The severe drought felt here in 1791 and 1792, was far more calamitous in India. Doctor Anderson states, in a letter to Colonel Kyd, dated the 9tli of August, 1792, that, owing to a failure of rain, during the above two years, one half of the inhabitants in the northern provinces had perished by famine ; and the remainder were so f~eble and weak, that on the report of rice coming from the Malabar coast, 5000 poor people left Rajamundy, and very few of them reached the sea-side, although the distance is only 50 miles. It appears by Mr. Bryan Edwards's History of the West Indies, that the seasons 1791-2 were unusually dry at the island of Montserrat." Barrow* in the latter part of 1792, when at the Cape de Verd islands says," In fact a drought of three years' continuance, and consequent famine for almost the same period, had nearly desolated the island." OcTOBER 12TH.-I had intended to have pushed my excursion further, but not being quite well, I was compelled to return by a balandra, or one-masted vessel of about a hundred tons burden, which was bound to Buenos Ayres. As the weather was not fair, we moored early in the day to a branch of a tree on one of the islands. The Parana is full of islands, which undergo a constant round of decay and renovation. In the memory of the master several large ones had disappeared, and others again had been formed and protected by vegetation. They are composed of muddy sand, without even the smallest pebble, and were then about four feet above the level of the river ; but during the periodical floods they are inundated. They all present one character ; numerous willows and a few other trees are bound together by a great variety of creeping plants, thus forming a thick jungle. These thickets afford a retreat for carpinchos and jaguars. Jlf Voyage to Cochin China, p. 67. Oct. 1833. JAGUAR. 159 !he fear ?f the latter animal, quite destroyed all pleasure m scramblmg through the woods. This evening I had not proceeded a hundred yards, before finding indubitable signs of the recent presence of the tiger, I was obliged to come back. On every island there are tracks ; and as on the former excursion "el rastro de los Indios" had been the subject of conversation, so in this was "el rastro del tigre." The. wooded banks of the great rivers appear to be the favourite haunt of the jaguar; but south of the Plata, I was told, they frequented the reeds bordering lakes : wherever t~ey are, they seem to require water. The jaguar has been killed on the banks of the Rio Negro, in lat. 41° ; and Falconer states that the lake N abuel-huapi, takes its name from the Indian word for tiger: the latitude of this lake is about 42°; which corresponds to the situation of the Pyrenees in the northern hemisphere. These animals are particularly abundan~ on the isles of the Parana ; their common prey is the carpmcho, so that it is generally said, where the carpinchos are plentiful there is little danger of the jaguar. Falconer states, that near the mouth of the Plata, on the so~ther~ side, the jaguars are numerous, and that they chiefly hve on fish; this account I have heard repeated. On the Parana they have killed many wood-cutters, and have even entered vessels at night. There is a man now living in the Bajada, who, coming up from below when it was dark, was seized on the deck; he escaped, however, with the loss of the use of one arm. When the floods drive these animals from the islands they are most dangerous. I was told, that a few years since, a very large one found its way into a church at St. Fe: two padres entering one after the other were killed, and a third, who came to see what was the matter, escaped with difficulty. The beast was destroyed by being shot from a corner of the building which was unroofed. They commit also at these times great ravages among the cattle and horses. It is said they kill their prey by breaking the vertebrre of the neck. If driven frQ.IIl the carcass they seldom return to it. The Gauch~s say that the jaguar, when |