‘One Sunday evening,’ says Waterton, ‘some years ago, as I was walking with Don Felipe de Yriarte, Governor of Angostura, on the bank of the Orinoco--“Stop here a minute or two, Don Carlos,” said he to me, “while I recount a sad accident. One fine evening, last year, as the people of Angostura were sauntering up and down in the Alameda, I was within twenty yards of this place, when I saw a large Cayman rush out of the river, seize a man, and carry him down, before anybody had it in his power to assist him. The screams of the poor fellow were terrible, as the Cayman was running off with him. He plunged into the river with his prey; we instantly lost sight of him, and never saw or heard him more.”’ Humboldt also relates that, during the inundations of the Orinoco, alligators will sometimes make their appearance in the very streets of Angostura, where they have been known to attack and drag away a human prey. Even among each other, these ferocious animals frequently engage in deadly conflict. Thus, Richard Schomburgk once saw a prodigiously large Cayman seize one of a smaller species (_Champsa vallifrons_) by the middle of the body, so that the head and tail projected on both sides of its muzzle. Now both of them disappeared under the surface, so that only the agitated waters of the otherwise calm river announced the death-struggle going on beneath; and then again the monsters reappeared, wildly beating the surface; so that it was hardly possible to distinguish here a tail, or there a monstrous head, in the seething whirlpool. At length, however, the tumult subsided, and the large Cayman was seen leisurely swimming to a sand-bank, where he immediately began to feed upon his prey.