According to their usual practice, they had hired one of the native
hunters of the district to act as a guide, and assist them in finding
the haunts of Bruin. In Napo they were fortunate in meeting with the
very man in the person of a _mestizo_, or half-blood Indian, who
followed hunting for his sole calling. He was what is termed a
"tigrero," or tiger-hunter--which title he derived from the fact that
the jaguar was the principal object of his pursuit. Among all
Spanish-Americans--Mexicans included--the beautiful spotted jaguar is
erroneously termed _tigre_ (tiger), as the puma or couguar is called
_leon_ (lion). A hunter of the jaguar is therefore denominated a
"tiger-hunter," or _tigrero_.
There are no puma or lion-hunters by profession--as there is nothing
about this brute to make it worth while--but hunting the jaguar is, in
many parts of Spanish America, a specific calling; and men make their
living solely by following this occupation. One inducement is to obtain
the skin, which, in common with those of the great spotted cats of the
Old World, is an article of commerce, and from its superior beauty
commands a good price. But the _tigrero_ could scarce make out to live
upon the sale of the skins alone; for although a London furrier will
charge from two to three guineas for a jaguar's robe, the poor hunter in
his remote wilderness market can obtain little more than a tenth part of
this price--notwithstanding that he has to risk his life, before he can
strip the fair mantle from the shoulders of its original wearer.
It is evident, therefore, that jaguar-hunting would not pay, if there
was only the pelt to depend upon; but the _tigrero_ looks to another
source of profit--the _bounty_.
In the hotter regions of Spanish America,--the Brazils as well--there
are many settlements to which the jaguar is not only a pest, but a
terror. Cattle in hundreds are destroyed by these great predatory
animals; even full-grown horses are killed and dragged away by them!
But is this all? Are the people themselves left unmolested? No. On
the contrary, great numbers of human beings every year fall victims to
the rapacity of the jaguars. Settlements attempted on the edge of the
great Montana--in the very country where our young hunters had now
arrived--have, after a time, been abandoned from this cause alone. It
is a well-known fact, that where a settlement has been formed, the
jaguars soon become more plentiful in that neighbourhood: the increased
facility of obtaining food--by preying on the cattle of the settlers, or
upon the owners themselves--accounting for this augmentation in their
numbers. It is precisely the same with the royal tiger of India, as is
instanced in the history of the modern settlement of Singapore.
To prevent the increase of the jaguars then, a bounty is offered for
their destruction. This bounty is sometimes the gift of the government
of the country, and sometimes of the municipal authorities of the
district. Not unfrequently private individuals, who own large herds of
cattle, give a bounty out of their private purses for every jaguar
killed within the limits of their estates. Indeed, it is not an
uncommon thing for the wealthy proprietor of a cattle-estate (_hacienda
de ganados_) to maintain one or more "tigreros" in his service--just as
gamekeepers are kept by European grandees--whose sole business consists
in hunting and destroying the jaguar. These men are sometimes pure
Indians, but, as a general thing, they are of the mixed, or _mestizo_
race. It need hardly be said that they are hunters of the greatest
courage. They require to be so: since an encounter with a full-grown
jaguar is but little less dangerous than with his striped congener of
the Indian jungles. In these conflicts, the tigreros often receive
severe wounds from the teeth and claws of their terrible adversary; and,
not unfrequently, the hunter himself becomes the victim.
You may wonder that men are found to follow such a perilous calling, and
with such slight inducement--for even the bounty is only a trifle of a
dollar or two--differing in amount in different districts, and according
to the liberality of the bestower. But it is in this matter as with all
others of a like kind--where the very danger itself seems to be the
lure.
The tigrero usually depends upon fire-arms for destroying his noble
game; but where his shot fails, and it is necessary to come to close
quarters, he will even attack the jaguar with his _machete_--a species
of half-knife half-sword, to be found in every Spanish-American cottage
from California to Chili.
Very often the jaguar is hunted without the gun. The tigrero, in this
case, arms himself with a short spear, the shaft of which is made of a
strong hard wood, either a _guaiacum_, or a piece of the split trunk of
one of the hardwood palms.
The point of this spear is frequently without iron--only sharpened and
hardened by being held in the fire--and with this in his left hand, and
his short sword in the right, the hunter advances with confidence upon
his formidable adversary. This confidence has been fortified by a
contrivance which he has had the precaution to adopt--that is, of
enveloping his left arm in the ample folds of his blanket--_serape,
roana_, or _poncho_, according to the country to which he belongs--and
using this as a shield.
The left arm is held well forward, so that the woollen mass may cover
his body against the bound of the animal, and thus is the attack
received. The jaguar, like all feline quadrupeds, springs directly
forward upon his prey. The tigrero prepared for this, and, with every
nerve braced, receives the assailant upon the point of his short spear.
Should the jaguar strike with its claws it only clutches the woollen
cloth; and while tearing at this--which it believes to be the body of
its intended victim--the right arm of the hunter is left free, and with
the sharp blade of his _machete_ he can either make cut or thrust at his
pleasure. It is not always that the tigrero succeeds in destroying his
enemy without receiving a scratch or two in return; but a daring hunter
makes light of such wounds--for these scars become badges of
distinction, and give him _eclat_ among the villages of the Montana.
Just such a man was the guide whom our young hunters had engaged, and
who, though a tiger-hunter by profession, was equally expert at the
capturing of a bear--when one of these animals chanced to stray down
from the higher slopes of the mountains, into the warmer country
frequented by the jaguars. It was not always that bears could be found
in these lower regions; but there is a particular season of the year
when the black bear (_ursus frugilegus_) descends far below his usual
range, and even wanders far out into the forests of the Montana.
Of course there must be some inducement for his making this annual
migration from his mountain home; for the _ursus frugilegus_, though
here dwelling within the tropics, does not affect a tropical climate.
Neither is he a denizen of the very cold plains--the _paramos_--that
extend among the summits of eternal snow. A medium temperature is his
choice; and this, as we have already stated, he finds among the
foot-hills, forming the lower zone of the Eastern Andes. It is there he
spends most of his life, and that is his place of birth, and
consequently his true home. At a particular season of the year,
corresponding to the summer of our own country, he makes a roving
expedition to the lower regions; and for what purpose? This was the
very question which Alexis put to the tigrero. The answer was as
curious as laconic:
"_Comer la cabeza del negro_." (To eat the negro's head!)
"Ha, ha! to eat the negro's head!" repeated Ivan, with an incredulous
laugh.
"Just so, senorito!" rejoined the man; "that is what brings him down
here."
"Why, the voracious brute!" said Ivan; "you don't mean to say that he
makes food of the heads of the poor negroes?"
"Oh no!" replied the tigrero, smiling in his turn; "it is not that."
"What then?" impatiently inquired Ivan. "I've heard of negro-head
tobacco. He's not a tobacco chewer, is he?"
"_Carrambo_! no, senorito," replied the tiger-hunter, now laughing
outright; "that's not the sort of food the fellow is fond of. You'll
see it presently. By good luck, it's just in season now--just as the
bears fancy it--or else we needn't look to start them here. We should
have to go further up the mountains: where they are more difficult both
to find and follow. But no doubt we'll soon stir one up, when we get
among the _cabezas del negro_. The nuts are just now full of their
sweet milky paste, of which the bears are so fond, and about a mile from
here there are whole acres of the trees. I warrant we find a bear among
them."
Though still puzzled with this half-explanation, our young hunters
followed the guide--confident that they would soon come in sight of the
"negro's head."