The “black jaguar” was, they said, not unfrequently found there; it is the largest and most bloodthirsty variety, with black spots scarcely distinguishable on its deep dark-brown skin. It lives at the foot of the mountains of Maraguaca and Unturan. One of the Indians of the Durimund tribe then related to us that jaguars are often led, by their love of wandering and by their rapacity, to lose themselves in such impenetrable parts of the forest that they can no longer hunt along the ground, and live instead in the trees, where they are the terror of the families of monkeys and of the prehensile-tailed viverra, the Cercoleptes. I borrow these notices from journals written at the time in German, and which were not entirely exhausted in the Narrative of my Travels, which I published in the French language. They contain a detailed description of the nocturnal life, or perhaps I might rather say the nocturnal voices, of the wild animals in the forests of the torrid zone; which appears to me particularly suited to form part of a work bearing the title of the present volumes. That which is written down on the spot, either in the immediate presence of the phenomena, or soon after the reception of the impressions which they produce, may at least lay claim to more life and freshness than can be expected in recollections. Descending from West to East the Rio Apure, the overflowings of whose waters and the inundations produced by them were noticed in the chapter on Steppes and Deserts, we arrived at its junction with the Orinoco. It was the season of low water, and the average breadth of the Apure was only a little more than twelve hundred English feet, yet I found the Orinoco at the confluence of the two rivers, not far from the granite rock of Curiquima, where I was able to measure a base line, still upwards of 11430 French (12180 English) feet wide. Yet this point, _i. e._ the Rock of Curiquima, is four hundred geographical miles in a straight line from the sea and from the Delta of the Orinoco. Part of the plains watered by the Apure and the Pagara are inhabited by tribes of the Yaruros and Achaguas, who, as they persist in maintaining their independence, are called savages in the mission villages established by the monks: their manners, however, are scarcely more rude than those of the Indians of the villages,--who, although baptized and living “under the bell” (baxo la compana), are still almost entirely untaught and uninstructed.