One evening, whilst returning to camp along the portage path that we
were cutting at Wonobobo Falls, I walked faster than the men, and got
some two hundred yards in advance. As I rose the slope of an uneven
piece of ground, I saw a large puma (_Felis concolor_) advancing along
the other side of the rise towards me, with its nose down on the ground.
The moment I saw it I stopped; and at the same instant it tossed up its
head, and seeing me also came to a stand. With its body half crouched,
its head erect, and its eyes round and black, from its pupils having
expanded in the dusky light, it looked at once a noble and appalling
sight. I glanced back along our wide path to see if any of my men were
coming, as at the moment I felt that it was not well to be alone without
some weapon of defence, and I knew that one of them had a gun; but
nothing could I see. As long as I did not move the puma remained
motionless also, and thus we stood some fifteen yards apart, eying each
other curiously. I had heard that the human voice is potent in scaring
most wild beasts, and feeling that the time had arrived to do something
desperate, I waved my arms in the air and shouted loudly. The effect on
the tiger was electrical; it turned quickly on one side, and in two
bounds was lost in the forest. I waited until my men came up, however,
before passing the place at which it disappeared in case it might only
be lying in ambush there; but we saw nothing more of it.
When returning down the portage and dragging our boats over, we saw a
jaguar sitting on a log near the same spot, watching our movements with
evident curiosity, and although the men were singing as they hauled the
boats along, it did not seem to mind the noise. As soon as it saw that
it was observed, it jumped off the log, and with a low growl made off.
From this I infer that the flight of my puma must have been owing more
to the windmill-like motion of my arms than to my voice.
During our journey across from the New River to the Essequebo, we were
cooking breakfast one morning, when we heard a tremendous rushing and
crashing noise coming towards us through the forest, and then caught a
glimpse of an accourie flying for dear life before a black tiger. Just
after they passed the accourie gave a heart-rending scream as the tiger
seized it, but on my men rushing up to the spot, the tiger left its prey
and fled. When picked up the accourie was quite dead, but on examination
showed no marks whatever of the tiger's teeth. The tiger had evidently
killed it by springing upon it with its legs close together, the weight
of its body giving such a blow that the accourie's life was fairly
knocked out. The men found its dead body just beyond a large log,
slightly raised from the ground, under which it had bolted and lost some
headway, while the cunning tiger took the log in its stride and so came,
as it intended, on the poor accourie's back, with the result we have
seen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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