Near the Joval nature assumes an awful and extremely wild aspect.
We there saw the largest jaguar we had ever met with. The natives
themselves were astonished at its prodigious length, which surpassed
that of any Bengal tiger I had ever seen in the museums of Europe.
The animal lay stretched beneath the shade of a large zamang.[23]
It had just killed a chiguire, but had not yet touched its prey, on
which it kept one of its paws. The vultures were assembled in great
numbers to devour the remains of the jaguar’s repast. They presented
the most curious spectacle; by a singular mixture of boldness and
timidity they advanced within the distance of two feet from the
animal, but at the least movement he made they drew back. In order to
observe more nearly the manners of these creatures we went into the
little skiff that accompanied our canoe. Tigers very rarely attack
boats by swimming to them, and never but when their ferocity is
heightened by a long privation of food. The noise of our oars led the
animal to rise slowly and hide itself behind the bushes that bordered
the shore. The vultures tried to profit by this moment of absence to
devour the chiguire, but the tiger leaped into the midst of them, and
in a fit of rage, expressed by his gait and the movement of his tail,
carried off his prey to the forest.
We passed the night in the open air, in a plantation, the proprietor
of which employed himself in hunting tigers. He wore scarcely any
clothing, and was of a dark brown complexion like a Zambo. This did
not prevent his classing himself amongst the whites. He called his
wife and daughter Doña Isabella and Doña Manuela. Without having
ever quitted the banks of the Apure, he took a lively interest in
the news of Madrid, enquiring eagerly respecting “those never-ending
wars and everything down yonder” (todas las cosas de alla). He knew,
he said, that the king was soon to come and visit “the grandees of
the country of Caracas,” but he added with some pleasantry, “as the
people of the court can eat only wheaten bread, they will never pass
beyond the town of Victoria, and we shall not see them here.” I had
brought with me a chiguire, which I had intended to have roasted,
but our host assured us that such “Indian game” was not food fit for
“nos otros caballeros blancos” (white gentlemen like ourselves and
him). Accordingly he offered us some venison which he had killed the
day before with an arrow, for he had neither powder nor fire-arms.
We supposed that a small wood of plantain-trees concealed from us
the hut of the farm; but this man, so proud of his nobility and
the color of his skin, had not taken the trouble of constructing
even a hut of palm-leaves. He invited us to have our hammocks hung
near his own, between two trees; and he assured us, with an air of
complacency, that if we came up the river in the rainy season we
should find him beneath a roof. We soon had reason to complain of a
system of philosophy which is indulgent to indolence, and renders a
man indifferent to the conveniences of life. A furious wind arose
after midnight, lightnings flashed over the horizon, thunder rolled,
and we were wet to the skin. During this storm a whimsical incident
served to amuse us for a moment. Doña Isabella’s cat had perched upon
the tamarind-tree, at the foot of which we lay. It fell into the
hammock of one of our companions, who, being hurt by the claws of
the cat, and suddenly aroused from a profound sleep, imagined he was
attacked by some wild beast of the forest. We ran to him on hearing
his cries, and had some trouble to convince him of his error. While
it rained in torrents on our hammocks and on our instruments which we
had brought ashore, Don Ignatio congratulated us on our good fortune
in not sleeping on the shore, but finding ourselves in his domain,
among whites and persons of respectability. Wet as we were, we could
not easily persuade ourselves of the advantages of our situation,
and we listened with some impatience to the long narrative our host
gave us of his pretended expedition to the Rio Meta, of the valor he
had displayed in a sanguinary combat with the Guahibo Indians, and
“the services that he had rendered to God and the king, in carrying
away Indian children from their parents to distribute them in the
missions.” We were struck with the singularity of finding in that
vast solitude a man believing himself to be of European race, and
knowing no other shelter than the shade of a tree, and yet having
all the vain pretensions, hereditary prejudices, and errors of
long-standing civilization!