e tip of his tail, he was found to
be twenty-seven feet long, and his circumference was eleven feet,
measured under the arm pits. His belly was much more voluminous,
but we thought it unnecessary to measure him there, judging that the
horse upon which he had breakfasted must considerably have increased
his bulk.

This process at an end, we took counsel as to what we should do
with the dead cayman. Every one gave his opinion. My wish was to
convey it bodily to my residence, but that was impossible; it would
have required a vessel of five or six tons burthen, and we could not
procure such a craft. One man wanted the skin, the Indians begged for
the flesh, to dry it, and use it as a specific against asthma. They
affirm, that any asthmatic person who nourishes himself for a certain
time with this flesh, is infallibly cured. Somebody else desired to
have the fat, as an antidote to rheumatic pains; and, finally, my
worthy priest demanded that the stomach should be opened, in order to
ascertain how many Christians the monster had devoured. Every time,
he said, that a cayman eats a Christian he swallows a large pebble;
thus, the number of pebbles we should find in him would positively
indicate the number of the faithful to whom his enormous stomach had
afforded sepulture. To satisfy everybody, I sent for an axe wherewith,
to cut off the head, which I reserved for myself, abandoning the rest
of the carcass to all who had taken part in the capture. It was no
easy matter to decapitate the monster. The axe buried itself in the
flesh to half-way up the handle without reaching the bones; at last,
after many efforts, we succeeded in getting the head off. Then we
opened the stomach, and took out of it, by fragments, the horse which
had been devoured by the monster that morning. The cayman does not
masticate, he snaps off a huge lump with his teeth, and swallows it
entire. Thus we found the whole of the horse, divided only into seven
or eight pieces. Then we came to about a hundred and fifty pounds'
weight of pebbles, varying from the size of a fist to that of a
walnut. When my priest saw this great quantity of stones:

"It is a mere tale," he could not help saying; "it is impossible that
this animal could have devoured so great a number of Christians."

It was eight o'clock at night when we had finished the cutting up. I
left the body to our assistants, and had the head placed in a boat to
convey it to my house. I very much desired