e. It
is a well-known fact, that where a settlement has been formed, the
jaguars soon become more plentiful in that neighbourhood: the increased
facility of obtaining food--by preying on the cattle of the settlers, or
upon the owners themselves--accounting for this augmentation in their
numbers. It is precisely the same with the royal tiger of India, as is
instanced in the history of the modern settlement of Singapore.

To prevent the increase of the jaguars then, a bounty is offered for
their destruction. This bounty is sometimes the gift of the government
of the country, and sometimes of the municipal authorities of the
district. Not unfrequently private individuals, who own large herds of
cattle, give a bounty out of their private purses for every jaguar
killed within the limits of their estates. Indeed, it is not an
uncommon thing for the wealthy proprietor of a cattle-estate (_hacienda
de ganados_) to maintain one or more "tigreros" in his service--just as
gamekeepers are kept by European grandees--whose sole business consists
in hunting and destroying the jaguar. These men are sometimes pure
Indians, but, as a general thing, they are of the mixed, or _mestizo_
race. It need hardly be said that they are hunters of the greatest
courage. They require to be so: since an encounter with a full-grown
jaguar is but little less dangerous than with his striped congener of
the Indian jungles. In these conflicts, the tigreros often receive
severe wounds from the teeth and claws of their terrible adversary; and,
not unfrequently, the hunter himself becomes the victim.

You may wonder that men are found to follow such a perilous calling, and
with such slight inducement--for even the bounty is only a trifle of a
dollar or two--differing in amount in different districts, and according
to the liberality of the bestower. But it is in this matter as with all
others of a like kind--where the very danger itself seems to be the
lure.

The tigrero usually depends upon fire-arms for destroying his noble
game; but where his shot fails, and it is necessary to come to close
quarters, he will even attack the jaguar with his _machete_--a species
of half-knife half-sword, to be found in every Spanish-American cottage
from California to Chili.

Very often the jaguar is hunted without the gun. The tigrero, in this
case, arms himself with a short spear, the shaft of which is made of a
strong hard wood, either a _guaiacum_, or a pie