ever price he chose to demand. The butter, or Manteca de Marano, as they call the lard, was also in great demand among the grandees, who fried most of their food in it. A party of eight would destroy two or three hundred badgers and a quantity of deer, on their return home, beside guanas. These hunting parties are so delightful, even to the women, that the hopes of being allowed to accompany the men will be a stimulus to conduct themselves properly the year round. On those excursions they live well, and seem more happy than during the rainy season: in their way home they travel day and night rapidly, in spite of all obstructions, carrying long poles between them, on which the animals are slung; the skins and lard the boys carry. The women are certainly the heaviest loaded, and must keep pace with those gentry; the dogs too are better fed during this period, and seem to return with regret. A cloud of vultures generally hover over them, and are seen by their clans a day or two before they arrive, who make every preparation to receive them: their return is greeted like that of victors. The rainy nights are passed in recounting their exploits one to another.

THE JAGUAR.

The taking of this fierce creature forms a portion of the warlike features distinguishing the Indians of South America, particularly the Laneros, or men of the plains, though these creatures invariably avoid the haunts of men, and commit very little depredations on any property unless sheep and goats, as the forest affords them plenty of prey, and their sagacity is great in discovering the numerous herds of deer and mountain goats. Fierce in his habits, he will not attack man, unless he scents human blood; in this case his thirst gets the better of him, and he has been frequently known at night to leap over six or seven file of men, in attempting to reach a wounded man: of this the Laneros are so well convinced that they encompass the wounded. One inducement a Laneros has in pursuing the jaguar is the honour of the feat, for the value of its skin, and the little depredations it commits on

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his flocks, would never, I apprehend, induce him to risk a single combat with such fierce animals; but there is a stronger stimulus, viz. that killing seven jaguars, or six tigers, will give him the title of guapo, or warrior, and entitle him to choose the fattest virgin for his companion in the tribe; for with them the lady who is most en bon point is most beautiful. This alone is a sufficient inducement; and they endeavour to complete their task as early as the age of seventeen. On the approach of the breeding season, they watch with great assiduity the battles that take place between the male and female, as this is a sure indication of her littering, not wishing to have the male know where she deposits the cubs, as some naturalists assert that he eats them; others, that he hugs them to death. However this be, she never suffers him to approach the jungle, if I may be allowed to call it so, until they are able to run after her. During this period, he awaits her with the most tender solicitude, and even brings her a portion of his prey. is seen hovering instinctively about the place where she is couched at noontide. When the Laneros perceives this, he envelops himself in a jaguar's skin, and approaches him, taking good care to have the wind in his favour, as the jaguar's keen scent would soon discover the imposition. Even this sagacity and instinct they think they have got over, by burning plantain leaves so as to take away any human scent the body has for hours; though this is probably a fancy. As soon as the Laneros perceives the jaguar, he runs from him on all fours, and endeavours to mimic the whining cry of the beast, which by some is said to be like a cat, or like hogs crouching in a stye; the latter is what I would compare them to, as I have seen them mustering by night previous to hunting. As soon as the male perceives him, he bounds towards him; when the Laneros dexterously throws the noose over him, and soon strangles him. Sometimes he wounds him with his lance, and then a sanguinary conflict takes place.. As the Laneros has his left arm well bound round with tanned

horse-skin, impervious to the jaguar's tusks, he presents his left hand; as soon as the jaguar seizes it, he is stabbed with a long knife, which seldom misses the heart, as the principal excellence of a guapo is killing the beast with as few stabs as possible. As soon as he despatches the male, the female becomes an easy prey. Sometimes the Laneros, when their numbers are complete, will, to prove their dexterity and address, decoy the jaguar into a defile, when the man uncovers and shows himself; the jaguar endeavours to retreat, but is prevented by other Indians, who scare him with fire-brands, for they can produce fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together, as quick as if with tinder. In this manner they sometimes worry him with dogs, while they keep him at bay until the women arrive to witness their cruelty. As the jaguar gets frantic, he endeavours to bite at every thing near him; as often as the creature opens his mouth he is sure to have a burning torch rammed into his throat, until madness exhausts him, and he is no longer able to close his jaws; then the women and boys descend from their high positions, chop off his paws, hammer out his teeth, and often skin him alive, while the boys are smeared with the blood, in order to make them good warriors, and the mothers take delight in seeing the animosity they have to the creature, even when no longer able to do any injury. As to the female jaguar, they have only to come near her couching-place to provoke a quarrel, as she will often attack them before they are within two hundred yards of it: in her they sometimes find a more formidable enemy than in the male, although much inferior in point of size and strength, but more subtle and crafty: their bite is difficult to heal, and the Laneros think a wound from a jaguar a great disgrace; so much so that a young aspirant for the title of guapo, who had the misfortune of being wounded in a rencontre, was so much ashamed of acknowledging it, that he suffered a mortification sooner than expose the wound, although he was well aware the women possessed a salve that would cure him.

THE OTTER.

Pero de Agua water-dog, and otter are synonimous terms in both languages. As hunting this species of otter in South America forms a recreation for the grandees or better sort of gentry for two or three months in the year, like our grousing or partridge shooting parties, an account of their aquatic excursions may prove interesting. In the month of May the parties assemble by previous arrangement, composed principally of the chief inhabitants of these districts and their relatives or clans and visitors, male slaves, muleteers, &c. Having ascended the waterfalls, they encamp near those clear and transparent rivers in which otters abound in great numbers. After the business of physicking the blood-hounds and a species of bluish cur without any hair, they make their hunting dispositions, and appoint their land and water captains to head each party; the duty of the latter is to stand in the prow of the canoe and cheer the dogs to the prey. A huntsman, in fact, is mostly an Indian, as those dogs will not hunt to any other tongue; what this is owing to, whether custom or sagacity, I know not, but it is certainly the case; however, the young Spaniards and Creoles have latterly remedied this defect, and are now as well qualified to hunt a bloodhound in the Indian tongue as an Indian himself. Both parties having armed themselves with otter spears, barbed like harpoons, and with long handles made of rough light wood about ten feet or more, they cheer on the bloodhounds, who no sooner wind the prey than they join chorus with their huntsmen, until they arrive near the Calle Pero, or otter city, when the land party divide into three; one watch; another ascend the ford; while the others poke the banks, in order to eject the creature. As soon as he is started, the hounds are again in full cry, and the curs are loosed to dive after him, and will relieve each other in this task: as soon as one is up down goes the other, while the hounds keep up the cry in the water at a slow pace, until they eventually force the creature to the head of the stream into shallow water,

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where these curs either snap him up or he is speared by the hunters; after this, the hounds are allowed the gratification of mouthing him until satisfied, when they again return to depopulate this little commonwealth of otters. After all the old otters have fled, the young ones betake themselves to the uppermost recesses of their burrows, and defend themselves with great obstinacy when they are dug out of their dirty habitation; a slight blow on the forehead will soon despatch them, as that seems their most vulnerable part. In their abode the head, fins, tails and fragments of several species of fish are to be seen, for the otter is, like most aquatic monsters, a glutton; as he seldom eats more than a mouthful of each fish, he must cause frightful destruction among the finny race, and his depredation causes his haunts to be found out at low water, when the hounds would pass him: Abbé Ricardo, who wrote a little treatise on the history of this animal, about a century ago, (in good preservation in the Cathedral of Carraccas) relates, that while the parent otters are in existence, they do not suffer the young gentry to attempt propagating, but that the young are two or three years under their parents' guardianship: one thing is very certain, in the same community are to be met three or four different generations of those creatures under the guidance of their patriarch. The alligator is the

only aquatic enemy of this creature, with the exception of the shark, with whom he has very little intercourse. It seems Father Ricardo caused a cagepond to be erected in his garden, in order to study their natural history. His little legend teems with amusing anecdotes of the aboriginal hunters, of whose club he was a member; those gentry, he said, during such excursions, lived well. Certainly, the echoing cry of hounds and hunters is the most delightful I ever heard. It vibrates through every glen at the distance of five or six miles.

The colour of the South American otter is different from that of the European; the latter is much darker; and the male is still darker than the female, who generally gets brown while suckling her puppies; Abbé Ricardo says that they change coats. The skin is now more valuable than formerly, as General Parr's cavalry use them for pistol-covers, and foraging regimental caps are made of them. They also use their skins for segar cases, and the Indians eat the flesh. In destroying fish, the otter rejects the head, and will not use it, although pressed by hunger. In Buenos Ayres there is one quite domesticated, which will invariably bring home what it gets in the river: but tame habits make it lazy and indolent; it is vicious during the breeding season, and is obliged to be chained.

his wine faster and faster, and puffed out his smoke from his pipe with greater rapidity and in larger volumes than he had heretofore done. He was vexed at the defeat and triumph he had just witnessed, and vowed in his own mind, should the man who had last left him return, to stake all that his master had given him, rather than that he should carry it with so high a hand. The fact is, the old cook, to whom we have already alluded, had given Karl a very respectable initiation into the inystery of card-playing, on divers cold winters' nights by the kitchen fire. Now, the game at which the strangers had been engaged was the very one on which he prided himself not a little. The truth must be spoken-mine is not a perfect hero. Besides being double loaded with ambition, he was primed with vanity, which no sooner encountered the match of opposition than explosion took place, which made many rather cautious of coming in his way. In a short time the successful stranger re-entered the chamber, but his adversary came not with him. He challenged Karl, who instantly accepted the offer, called for more wine, and again filled his pipe. He played for very small stakes, yet his little purse was getting lower and lower, for the stranger had an advantage over him which he was slow to believe, but which was at last too evident. At length he had little more than sufficient remaining to discharge the bill of the herbergist, and arose from the table with impatience and vexation. It is doubtful whether the loss of the money affected him so much as the wound that his youthful pride had suffered. He was turning to depart, when the laugh, or rather yell, of his companion checked him. Stung to the soul by the insult he had just received, Karl flew towards him and aimed a blow full at his face, but, in the act of doing so, fell forward on his hands. He sprang up, but the stranger was gone, although the door had been and was still closed and the windows were down. Karl's anger now gave place to astonishment. He was convinced that the stranger had dealings with the devil; nay, he almost thought he had

been gambling with the arch master of the ceremonies himself. He found also that either astonishment or Rhenish wine had had the effect of making his steps indecisive, his head giddy, and reduced the chance of keeping on his legs, and the risk of falling down, to pretty even terms. He however paid his host, and, without knowing how he got there, found himself on the back of Nicolaus, riding along as it appeared to him much more rapidly than usual. What surprised him most of all was, that everything around him seemed likewise to have gotten the travelling mania. There were some fine old elms going at the rate of ten miles an hour, and, what was very remarkable, some little shrubs that grew near appeared to keep up with them. A large farm house was in pursuit of a barn, but they were so well matched, that there was little hope of its being overtaken. There was also an admirable steeple-chase between the heads of two distant churches, and a boy who was sitting on a bank by the road side rode past him in excellent style. "This may be all very agreeable (muttered Karl) to the parties concerned, but, for my part, I care not how soon they finish their long-winded race. Stop, stop-Nicolaus, no galloping if it please thee, thou unruly steed of Satan. Whenever I have desired thee to use thy speed, thou hast gone slow enough, and now thou must, out of thy very obstinacy, and regardless of my safety, hurry on as if thy master were behind thee!" He pulled the rein as he finished speaking, and Nicolaus suddenly stood still. His rider had awakened him from a fine sleeping jog-trot, and he looked as if he much marvelled what satisfactory reason could be given for it. There was no stable near, which doubtless appeared to him the only fair excuse for a full stop, nor was there the least sign of provender. However, for once, he seemed determined to do as his rider wished, and still he stood

As Hildebrand the gallant knighte,
Who saw his ladye's ghost at nighte
Throwe off the veiling palle and shroude,
And vanish through a parted cloude.

Karl began to be better satisfied, for