d them to the skin; but their troubles did not end here,
for Donna Isabella's cat had perched on one of the trees, and frightened
by the thunder-storm, jumped down upon one of the travellers in his cot;
he naturally supposed that he was attacked by a wild beast, and as smart
a battle took place between the two, as that celebrated feline
engagement of Don Quixote; the cat, who perhaps had most reason to
consider himself an ill-used personage, at length bolted, but the fears
of the gentleman had been excited to such a degree, that he could hardly
be quieted. The following night was not more propitious to slumber. The
party finding no tree convenient, had stuck their oars in the sand, and
suspended their hammocks upon them. About eleven, there arose in the
immediately adjoining wood, so terrific a noise, that it was impossible
to sleep. The Indians distinguished the cries of sapagous, alouates,
jaguars, cougars, peccaris, sloths, curassows, paraquas, and other
birds, so that there must have been as full a forest chorus as Mr.
Hullah himself could desire.

When the jaguars approached the edge of the forest, which they
frequently did, a dog belonging to the party began to howl, and seek
refuge under their cots. Sometimes, after a long silence, the cry of the
jaguars came from the tops of the trees, when it was followed by an
outcry among the monkeys. Humboldt supposes the noise thus made by the
inhabitants of the forest during the night, to be the effect of some
contests that had arisen among them.

On the pampas of Paraquay, great havoc is committed among the herds of
horses by the jaguars, whose strength is quite sufficient to enable them
to drag off one of these animals. Azara caused the body of a horse,
which had been recently killed by a jaguar, to be drawn within
musket-shot of a tree, in which he intended to pass the night,
anticipating that the jaguar would return in the course of it, to its
victim; but while he was gone to prepare for his adventure, behold the
animal swam across a large and deep river, and having seized the horse
with his teeth, dragged it full sixty paces to the river, swam across
again with his prey, and then dragged the carcase into a neighboring
wood; and all this in sight of a person, whom Azara had placed to keep
watch. But the jaguars have also an aldermanic gout for turtles, which
they gratify in a very systematic manner, as related by Humboldt, who
was shown large shells of turtles emptied