The following night, Humboldt and his party were entertained by a jaguar hunter, half-naked, and as brown as a Zambo, who prided himself on being of the European race; and called his wife and daughter, who were as slightly clothed as himself, Donna Isabella and Donna Manuela. 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 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.