s beast was approaching so
fast that he could almost seize us, when Lindsay, running all risks,
fired his gun direct at the brute.

The effect produced by the detonation was prodigious, for, as it were
by enchantment, it dispelled all our apprehensions. The awful silence
was broken in the most striking manner; the cayman was frightened, and
sank abruptly to the bottom of the lake; hundreds of echoes resounded
from all sides, like the discharges of a rifle corps, and these were
repeated to the tops of the mountains, while clouds of cormorants,
starting from all the trees around, uttered their screaming and
piercing cries, in which they were joined by the Indians, who shouted
with joy on seeing from the bank the flight of the hostile beast,
of which they are always so much afraid.

All then became tranquil, and we proceeded at our leisure. From time
to time a cayman made his appearance; but the explosions caused by
our firing soon drove the monsters down into the deepest parts of
the lake, more frightened than hurt, for even when we struck them
our balls rebounded from their scales without piercing them.

We went close to the large trees, the branches of which were spreading
over the water; they were thickly covered with nests, filled with eggs,
and so great a quantity of young birds, that we not only captured as
many as we wished, but could have filled several boats with them.

The cormorants, alarmed by the explosions we made, whirled over us
continually, like an immense cloud, during the time we troubled their
gloomy abode, and seemed to "disturb their solitary reign;" but they
did not wish to go far from their nests, in which their young broods
were crying out for parental care.

After we had rowed round the lake, we came to the spot from which we
started, having ended our expedition happily without any accident,
and even without having incurred all the dangers that our Indians,
who were awaiting our return in order to take our boats once more
across the mountain, had wished to make us believe.

Resolved not to finish the excursion without producing some beneficial
results for the sake of scientific knowledge, we measured the
circumference of the lake, which we found to be about two miles and
a-half. We were able to take soundings in the deepest parts towards
the middle, where we found the depth about three hundred feet; while at
some few fathoms from the banks we found it was invariably one hundred
and eighty