As this aspiring personage had neither home nor hut, he invited the
strangers to swing their hammocks near his own between two trees, but,
as ill-luck would have it, a thunder storm came on, which wetted 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
thunderstorm, 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 Quixotte; 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 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 contest that had arisen among them.

On the pampas of Paraguay, great havoc is committed among the herds of
horses by the jaguars, whose strength is quite sufficient to enable