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
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 carcass into a 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 by them.
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