e mule and pass under the animal's belly. This creature was of a
greenish-yellow colour, about five feet in length, and four or five
inches thick. It resembled some kind of water-snake more than a fish,
but Guapo knew it was not a snake, but an eel. It was the great
_electric eel_--the "temblador," or "gymnotus."

This explained the mystery. The gymnotus, having placed itself under the
belly of the unsuspecting mule, was able to bring its body in contact at
all points, and hence the powerful shock that had created such an
effect.

The mule, however, soon recovered, but from that time forward, no
coaxing, nor leading, nor driving, nor whipping, nor pushing, would
induce that same mule to go within twenty feet of the bank of that same
piece of water.

Guapo now bethought himself of the narrow escape he himself had had
while swimming across to the palm-woods; and the appearance of the
gymnotus only rendered him more determined to keep the promise he had
made to Leon,--that is, that he would revenge him of the caribes.

None of them could understand how Guapo was to get his revenge without
catching the fish, and that would be difficult to do. Guapo, however,
showed them how on the very next day.

During that evening he had made an excursion into the wood, and returned
home carrying with him a large bundle of roots.

They were the roots of two species of plants--one of the genus
_Piscidea_, the other a _Jacquinia_. Out of these, when properly pounded
together, Guapo intended to make the celebrated "barbasco," or
fish-poison, which is used by all the Indians of South America in
capturing fish. Guapo knew that a sufficient quantity of the barbasco
thrown into the water would kill either "temblador," caribe, or any fish
that ever swam with fins.

And so it proved. In the morning Guapo having prepared his barbasco,
proceeded to the upper end of the lake-like opening of the river, and
there flung his poison into the stream. The slow current through the
valley greatly favoured him, and from the large quantity of roots he had
used, the whole pool was soon infected with it. This was seen from the
whitish tinge which the water assumed. The barbasco had scarcely time to
sink to the bottom when small fish were seen coming to the surface, and
turning "wrong side uppermost." Then larger ones appeared, and in a few
minutes all the fish in that particular stretch of water, with several
gymnoti, were seen floating on the surface qui