Adventures of a Young Naturalist Part 49

The cattle approached. The ground trembled under their feet, and we were deafened by their bellowing. One of them, a magnificent bull, with a black coat sprinkled with white spots, took the lead. The drove, which first trotted on, and then stopped to browse, followed its imperious-looking chief; the caymans, as if awakened by the uproar, a.s.sembled at the opening of the savannah, and numerous watchful eyes were to be seen on the surface of the water.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The entire drove . . . dashed at full gallop into the stream."]

The wild drove halted at about fifty paces from the stream; the black and white bull advanced alone and, first leisurely taking a drink, plunged into the water; he reached the opposite bank, where he halted and turned right about. Then the entire drove, above which was hovering a cloud of horse-flies, dashed at full gallop into the stream to join their guide. Although the drove must have consisted of hundreds, in less than a quarter of an hour there were not left more than five or six on our side, and these seemed afraid to cross. Suddenly a gun was fired, and one of the animals came rushing past our tree with a jet of blood flowing from his chest. Suddenly he stopped, groaned, and sank down upon the ground. I cast a glance at l'Encuerado, who descended to the lowest branch, continuing his gymnastic exercises. The young bulls on our side, frightened by the report of the gun, at last made up their minds to cross; one of them, however, stopping to drink, was seized by a crocodile, and gradually drawn under the water. A second disappeared in the middle of the stream; and a third, after a fearful struggle, reached the bank. The whole drove, goaded on by the horse-flies, then resumed their furious course, and were soon lost in the distance.

These cattle range the prairies in droves of sometimes forty thousand, and were originally imported by the Spaniards.

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CHAPTER x.x.xII.

THE KING OF THE VULTURES.--THE TICKS.--L'ENCUERADO FRIGHTENED BY A DEMON.--THE TAPIRS.--GOOD-BYE TO THE STREAM.--THE PUMA'S PREY.--A MISERABLE NIGHT.--OUR DEPARTURE.--THE SAVANNAH.--LUCIEN CARRIED IN A LITTER.--HUNGER AND THIRST.--WE ABANDON OUR BAGGAGE AND PETS IN DESPAIR.

The next morning l'Encuerado started alone on the raft; for we had resolved to cross the savannah on foot, and thus escape, for an hour or two, the insects which took advantage of our forced immobility in order to bleed us at their leisure.

Flocks of black vultures hovered high up in the sky, bending their course towards a spot not very far from the river bed. Our curiosity led us in that direction, and in a large hole, with perpendicular sides, about twelve yards wide, we saw several hundreds of these bare-necked gentry fighting over the carca.s.s of a buffalo. We were retiring in disgust, when the vultures, who had not seemed the least alarmed at our presence, suddenly manifested fear, and, abandoning their prey, stood around in evident concern. A new guest had made its appearance in the sky, and soared round and round above us. It settled down heavily, and folded its black and white wings; the new-comer was the _Sarcoramphus papa_ of the _savants_--a bird akin to the condor.

This king of the vultures, as the Indians call it, had a black tail, and white plumage on its back. Its neck was adorned with a ruff of pearl-gray feathers, and the top of its head was streaked in symmetrical lines with a dark down; on its yellow beak there was a fleshy protuberance, the utility of which ornithologists seek in vain to explain. The magnificent bird darted round it a domineering look, and, advancing towards the prey, began to feed. New guests were incessantly arriving, but they all kept their distance.

At last the _sarcoramphus_ flew away, and immediately the vultures rushed _en ma.s.se_ on the carca.s.s, which soon disappeared under the crowd of beaks.

We now made for the raft, but the distance was greater than we had calculated; and, before going on board, it was highly necessary to free ourselves of the hundreds of _ticks_ which we had collected in the savannah. These insects are black, and as small as fleas, and gather in ma.s.ses at the extremities of plants, ready to attach themselves to any animal that brushes against them. They then bury their claws in the flesh, and greedily suck the blood. It is a tedious job to pick off one by one these troublesome parasites, which cause an almost unbearable itching.

About five o'clock in the evening, the raft came to sh.o.r.e in a bay shaded by palm-trees. L'Encuerado hastened to stretch out his tigers'

skins, and, as night was at hand, we contented ourselves with the remains of a tortoise. The Indian, who had walked but little, c.o.c.ked his gun and strolled along the edge of the river. In about a quarter of an hour he returned, looking pale and excited.

"Have you been bitten by a serpent?" I cried.

"No, Tat.i.ta," he replied, quite out of breath; "something worse than that! I have seen _it_!"

"What?" I exclaimed.

"A ghost!" said the Indian in a low tone, crossing himself.

"Pluck up your spirits," said I to the Indian; "if you have, we'll kill it to-morrow."

"You can't kill it, Tat.i.ta."

"With ordinary bullets, no; but those which Sumichrast knows how to prepare will soon settle him."

My curiosity was raised; for this ghost was an animal called a tapir, which the Indians believe possessed of supernatural powers; and, as I had never met with one, I was anxious that we should come across it.

"And didn't you aim at it?" cried my friend.

"No; I ran away," replied the fearless tiger-hunter.

Thus l'Encuerado, whom the evening before we had seen braving tigers, crocodiles, and wild cattle, now trembled at the mere idea of facing an inoffensive animal, which was only a relation of the peccaries, with a snout terminated by a non-prehensile proboscis, yet to which his imagination attributed certain demoniac qualities. He that night utterly refused to go to rest; at the least rustling of the leaves he expected to see the ghost appear. Instead of directly opposing his error--which I knew would be of no use--I endeavored to convince him that my power far surpa.s.sed that of the object of his dread.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The reeds were pushed aside."]

"If it wasn't for that," I urged on him, "do you think I would permit Lucien to sleep in so dangerous a neighborhood?"

Sumichrast gave the Indian two bullets, and solemnly told him that with these projectiles he would surely kill the object of his dread if he aimed straight. L'Encuerado gradually recovered his self-possession; the idea of slaying in one of its most formidable shapes the cause of his superst.i.tion excited his self-esteem, and he went to sleep, and no doubt dreamt of his next day's exploit.

At day-break we walked down to the confluence of the two rivers; in front of us stretched a broad prairie covered with thick gra.s.s. If the tapir had not quenched its thirst in the night, it would be sure to reappear; therefore Lucien and Sumichrast turned to the left close by the stream, while I and my servant crouched down behind the trunk of a tree at the entrance of the forest.

We remained in this position for more than an hour, when suddenly the reeds were pushed, aside, and two of the looked-for pachyderms came out together on the green-sward.

L'Encuerado kept on crossing himself without intermission.

"Fire," said I, in a low voice, "and aim straight at the forehead."

The gun went off, and the tapirs decamped; but one of them fell on the ground before it could enter the water; it was dead ere we reached it.

"You have killed the object of your dread," said Lucien, who ran up to examine the curious animal.

"Yes, Chanito, thanks to the enchanted bullets."

L'Encuerado having positively refused to touch the tapir, Sumichrast undertook to cut it up, as we much wished to taste its flesh. All our efforts to induce the Indian to do likewise were fruitless, and his ingenious mind found a retort to all our arguments. The flesh of the animal reminded us a little of that of the peccary, although it was less highly flavored.

About midday the tigers' skins were taken up, and the raft was soon floating over the combined streams. We had at first thought of proceeding in this way as far as the Gulf of Mexico; but the season was now too far advanced to admit of such an excursion. We at length made up our minds that the next day we should abandon our raft, and return by the shortest route to our starting-point.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

At dawn of day our bivouac was enlivened by hundreds of birds.

L'Encuerado cut the mooring line of the raft, and let it float down the stream, thanking it at the same time for the services it had rendered us, and wishing it prosperity in its lonely voyage to the ocean.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The deer sank down under the weight of a puma."]

As I stood watching the frail bark gliding away, two herons perched upon it, and it soon glided out of sight laden with its winged pa.s.sengers.

We were all ready to start; the "Tapir River," as Lucien had named it, we bid adieu to with three hurrahs, and our little party set off, following Sumichrast, who carried Master Job perched on his shoulder.

Our way lay in part through a prairie, where the heat was overpowering, and in part through palm-tree woods, infested with mosquitoes. At last, overcome by fatigue, we felt compelled to halt and bivouac for the night.

As we were arranging our bivouac next night, l'Encuerado saw a crayfish, and set off with Lucien to try and catch some of them. I and Sumichrast started on the trail of some deer we had seen bounding past. We had scarcely gone more than five hundred yards before we climbed a hill beyond which a savannah was spread out before us as far as the eye could reach, the high gra.s.s of which looked almost like ripe wheat.

Sumichrast, who had halted, summoned me by an imitation of the cry of an owl. I hastily and noiselessly joined him, when he pointed out to me, among the trees, a deer quietly browsing, which would no doubt pa.s.s within gunshot. I stood watching by my friend, following with anxiety all the movements of the graceful animal, for twice it threw up its head and showed some vague uneasiness. Sumichrast, fearing that it was about to make off, was getting ready to fire, when the deer gave a bound and sank down under the weight of a puma, which had sprung upon it. I fired at the carnivore, which the ferocious brute responded to by a loud roar, then, dragging its prey a distance of about fifty yards, it suddenly made off. The venison of the deer, and more than thirty small crayfish caught by Lucien and his friend, were a G.o.dsend to our larder, and amply made up for the short commons of previous occasions.

We watched the sun go down from the top of the hill, and descried on the horizon the bluish line of the Cordillera, with the volcano of Orizava towering up towards the west. Henceforth this mountain was to be our guide while crossing the immense savannah, an undertaking which filled me with dread.

"Shall we cross that great plain?" asked Lucien.