come crashing through the branches like cannon-balls. The gatherers keep to their huts while the morning wind is blowing, and if their roof is at all exposed it is inclined strongly, so that the fruits will glance off from it. While the fruits are falling, the gatherers occupy themselves at home, cutting open the hard cases with their heavy knives, and drying the nuts in the sun. When the wind dies away, men and women sally out to the gathering, bringing the nuts on their backs in great baskets."

It is true the trade of the Amazon Valley has rapidly increased within the past few years, but it has not been such a development as makes a very good showing for the country, since the principal article of this commerce— rubber-has been produced at the cost of the natural wealth of the forest; being much on the same principle in which lumber is produced from our pine-forests in the United States, with total disregard of regrowth and the future. For the proper development of the Amazon Valley there are needed just what is required in the other large unoccupied areas of Brazil-people and capital.

CHAPTER XVII.

BEASTS OF PREY.

Of all the beasts of prey in Brazil, the most formidable and the most common is the jaguar, or South American tiger, called in Brazil the onça. There are three kindsred, spotted, and black, the last two kinds being the largest. This animal does not stand as high as the Asiatic tiger, but is very powerfully built, and carries off cattle. The length of a large specimen is from six to seven feet, but an ordinary one measures about four feet from the nose to the root of the tail. "Its manner of killing its victim is, after springing upon it, to strike it to the earth by a blow of its powerful paw." It seldom attacks human beings, unless interfered with or wounded; and I have seen people who had seen an onça in the forest, and who said they were not afraid of meeting one.

The spotted onça is handsomely marked, and the skin of one sells at Rio for ten dollars. The English naturalist Wallace, while out alone with his rifle in the forest solitude of the Amazon, saw a black onça cross his path a little way ahead of him, walking leisurely along. The animal stopped a few moments and looked at him; and Mr. Wallace, who was an excellent shot, relates that he was so astonished and impressed by the magnificence of the beast that he never thought to fire at him, and, while he stood fixed in admiration, the onça disappeared.

The few anecdotes I have heard of the Brazilian onça are not, I am happy to say, of a very thrilling character. Some of them are ludicrous rather than dreadful. A queer experience with an onça is related of one of the American settlers on the forest shore of the big lake of Juparana, in the province of Espirito Santo. The man lived alone, two miles from any neighbor, in a small cabin, having an open doorway, but no door. One night he was awakened from sleep by what he thought were the footsteps of some person; and, getting up and going to his open doorway to see who could be making him a visit at that time of night, lo and behold! there was an onça standing opposite the entrance and looking toward him. He was greatly alarmed, for he had no weapon of defense, and there was nothing to prevent the prowling intruder attacking him. He had an axe, but it was out in the shed, and he did not dare to step beyond the threshold. The only thing he could think of for safety was to seize a tin pan, which happened to be among his household utensils, and climb aloft on one of the timbers of his cabin, and scare off the onça by beating the pan. He kept beating the tin pan till daylight, when he cautiously descended and looked about. The onça had disappeared, and, so far as is known, never came back.

I once asked an English civil engineer who had resided twenty-three years in Brazil, and had been a good deal through the country exploring railway routes, if he had ever come across an onça. "No," said he, "never. The onça is a humbug. I should have no fear of one. It is no bigger than a calf, and I consider it a humbug. I have traveled thousands of miles in Brazil, and never carried and never needed a weapon."

While examining with Dr. Herbert Smith his large

and new natural history collection from Matto-Grosso at the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, and, among other things, the skull of an onça, which indicated a powerful animal, he told me that the onça in question, before being taken, had killed two dogs, and said the instinct of the beast was to seize his victim by the throat. I naturally inquired if he would be apt to attack a man in that way, and was informed that the onça, in fighting a human being, would first try to deal a knock-down blow on the head with his paw. He mentioned this case, which came under his knowledge: A man was attacked by an onça, and had only a knife for a weapon. He, however, wore a pretty thick and strong leather pouch or bag, and had the presence of mind to put his hand into this, and with it, thus protected, to thrust it into the onça's mouth. While the beast was trying in vain to bite through it, the man dispatched him with his knife, but got some bad scratches on his breast.

A Brazilian, living about sixty miles from Rio, was in the woods with his gun not long ago, and was startled by a noise and growl which he supposed were from an onça close by him. He was frightened almost out of his wits, but braced himself against a tree, and brought his rifle to his shoulder to be ready to fire. In a moment more he saw that it was nothing more dangerous than half a dozen screeching monkeys in a furious chase up a tree, as badly frightened, perhaps, as he.

Prof. Facchenetti, a landscape-painter of Rio, once, when up in the Organ Mountains alone, had just got his brushes out, ready to begin work, when his attention was arrested by the noise of a movement near him. Looking that way, he saw passing, as if on the scent of prey, a large and beautifully marked onça, which twice turned

its head to regard him. He had no weapon, but simply looked at the beast with an opera-glass, and he walked quietly off.

A leading botanist, now at Rio, while on a scientific tour in the interior province of Minas-Geraes, accompanied by a servant and a scientific assistant, camped one night in a sort of stone cave, having only a small opening. They brushed away the rubbish, among which were a few bones, and, as it was already night, the botanist, being tired, had lain down and was asleep. The assistant was in the act of making a cigarette, when suddenly he dropped it, threw up his hands, and gave a terrible cry of alarm. They had unconsciously appropriated to themselves the den of this most dreadful wild beast, and he had come back, his eyes glaring fire, to his accustomed lodging. His appearance at the mouth of the cave caused the shriek which awakened the botanist and actually made the servant's hair to stand on end. He went off, however, yet every little while through the night they saw at the mouth of the cave a pair of eyes looking like balls of fire. They also heard his disagreeable growl while he was wandering about outside. They sat up every minute of the night, and kept up a blazing fire to frighten him away. Every time he appeared the servant's teeth chattered with fear.

In the end of one of the streets of the village of Linhares, on the river Doce, province of Espirito Santo, an onça killed a horse only a few months ago. Well, when an onça gets that near, he must be killed, or he will destroy all the live-stock; so a hunting-party was got together, and went out and succeeded in killing the beast, but not till he had dispatched a score or so of venturesome dogs. An American planter, living in that vicinity, in