Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/294

 shining examples of the superior civilisation of Europe in attendance at Catuá. The masters kept their Indians well under control; the young people enjoyed themselves upon the whole innocently, and sociability was pretty general amongst all classes and colours.

Our rancho was a large one, and was erected in a line with the others, near the edge of the sandbank which sloped rather abruptly to the water. During the first week the people were all, more or less, troubled by alligators. Some half-dozen full-grown ones were in attendance off the praia, floating about on the lazily-flowing, muddy water. The dryness of the weather had increased since we had left Shimuní, the currents had slackened, and the heat in the middle part of the day was almost insupportable. But no one could descend to bathe without being advanced upon by one or other of these hungry monsters. There was much offal cast into the river, and this, of course, attracted them to the place. One day I amused myself by taking a basketful of fragments of meat beyond the line of ranchos, and drawing the alligators towards me by feeding them. They behaved pretty much as dogs do when fed; catching the bones I threw them in their huge jaws, and coming nearer and showing increased eagerness after every morsel. The enormous gape of their mouths, with their blood-red lining and long fringes of teeth, and the uncouth shapes of their bodies, made a picture of unsurpassable ugliness. I once or twice fired a heavy charge of shot at them, aiming at the vulnerable part of their bodies, which is a small space situated behind the eyes, but this had no other effect than to make them