The moment was come; the grand drama announced by the Indians was about to be realised, or all our fears would be dissipated without any delay. There was not one instant to be spared, and we had no choice but to try and escape as fast as we could, for the enemy was gaining on us, and it would be madness to await his attack. I was steering, and I exerted myself to the utmost to get away from the danger and to escape to the shore. But the amphibious beast was approaching so fast that he could almost seize us, when Lindsay, running all risks, fired his gun direct at the brute. The effect produced by the detonation was prodigious, for, as it were by enchantment, it dispelled all our apprehensions. The awful silence was broken in the most striking manner; the cayman was frightened, and sank abruptly to the bottom of the lake; hundreds of echoes resounded from all sides, like the discharges of a rifle corps, and these were repeated to the tops of the mountains, while clouds of cormorants, starting from all the trees around, uttered their screaming and piercing cries, in which they were joined by the Indians, who shouted with joy on seeing from the bank the flight of the hostile beast, of which they are always so much afraid. All then became tranquil, and we proceeded at our leisure. From time to time a cayman made his appearance; but the explosions caused by our firing soon drove the monsters down into the deepest parts of the lake, more frightened than hurt, for even when we struck them our balls rebounded from their scales without piercing them. We went close to the large trees, the branches of which were spreading over the water; they were thickly covered with nests, filled with eggs, and so great a quantity of young birds, that we not only captured as many as we wished, but could have filled several boats with them. The cormorants, alarmed by the explosions we made, whirled over us continually, like an immense cloud, during the time we troubled their gloomy abode, and seemed to "disturb their solitary reign;" but they did not wish to go far from their nests, in which their young broods were crying out for parental care. After we had rowed round the lake, we came to the spot from which we started, having ended our expedition happily without any accident, and even without having incurred all the dangers that our Indians, who were awaiting our return in order to take our boats once more across the mountain, had wished to make us believe.