Page:Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan.djvu/565

Rh end of our afternoon's journey; but the padre watched carefully the appearance of the sky, and, after satisfying himself that the rain would not come on till late, positively forbade our passing on. His sitio was what would be called at home a "new" place, being a tract of wild land of I do not know what extent, but some large quantity, which had cost him five pounds, and about as much more to make the improvements, which consisted of a hut made of poles and thatched with corn-husks, and a cocina or kitchen at a little distance. The stables and outhouses were a clearing bounded by a forest so thick that cattle could not penetrate it, and on the roadside by a rude fence. Altogether, in that mild climate, the effect was good; and it was one of those occasions which make a man feel, away from the region of fictitious wants, how little a necessary for the comforts of life. The furniture of the hut consisted of two reed bedsteads, a table, and a bench, and in one corner was a pile of corn. The cura sent out for half-a-dozen fresh pine-apples; and while we were refreshing ourselves with them we heard an extraordinary noise in the woods, which an Indian boy told us was made by "un animal." Pawling and I took our guns, and entering a path in the woods, as we advanced the noise sounded fearful, but all at once it stopped. The boy opened a way through thickets of brush and underwood, and through an opening in the branches I saw on the limbs of a high tree a large black animal with fiery eyes. The boy said it was not a mico or monkey, and I supposed it to be a catamount. I had barely an opening through which to take aim, fired, and the animal dropped below the range of view; but, not hearing him strike the ground, I looked again, and saw him hanging by his tail, and dead, with the blood streaming from his mouth. Pawling attempted to climb the tree; but it was fifty feet to the first branch, and the blood trickled down the trunk. Wishing to examine the creature more closely, we sent the boy to the house, whence he returned with a couple of Indians. They cut down the tree, which fell with a terrible crash, and still the animal hung by its tail. The ball had struck him in the mouth and knocked out the fore teeth, passed out at the top of his back between his shoulders, and must have killed him instantly. The tenacity of his tail seemed marvellous, but was easily explained. It had no grip, and had lost all muscular power, but was wound round the branch with the end under so that the weight of the body tightened the coil, and the harder the strain, the more secure was the hold. It was not a monkey, but so near a connexion that I would not have shot him if I had known it. In fact he was even more nearly related to the human family, being called a monos or ape, and measured six feet including the tail; very