Efforts to escape
My first meal, as I have stated, when left to cater for myself, consisted of gum, of which I had a store in my pocket. As soon, therefore, as I had satisfied myself with the surrounding objects of admiration, I thought of making another effort to regain the spot where I had left my parents: it was a vain hope, but I pursued it throughout the day, during which I must have travelled many miles. In the course of my peregrinations, I found abundance of fruit and nuts, which lay strewed in my way. Late in the day, I met with a mass of the bush-rope, and, ignorant of its abundance, I at once jumped to the conclusion that I had arrived at the identical spot which our party had before passed. This barrier, as it is designated, to my view was considerably extended; and then my heart, after being elevated with hope, again sunk within me. Still, however, disinclined to relinquish hope, my only solace, I soon persuaded myself that I might not, on the former occasion, have accurately surveyed it; and I resolved, as night was fast approaching, to remain on the spot till the following morning, and from thence to make a fresh start, to find, if possible, the track in which the party were travelling.
In social life, provident thoughts rarely trouble a youth of thirteen years of age; his parents, or others, think for him, and generally every night provide a bed for his resting-place. Such had been previously my case; the reader will, therefore, not be surprised that, up to this moment, I had not bestowed a thought on how I was to pass the ensuing night in security. I was, however, now fairly inducted into the school of hard necessity; and as the day was fast waning, I had no time to lose. Acting on impulse, I commenced climbing the bush-rope, intending there to make my bed, but the dread of falling came over me, and checked my resolution. I then thought of a hollow tree, many of which I had seen in the course of my perambulations. Following this suggestion of the mind, I immediately began a search for one, and fortunately met with it on the spot. Night was, however, setting in so rapidly, that I had no time to be nice in my choice.
The jaguar
The tree that seemed most to invite me to enter into its interior was partly uprooted, leaning its head towards the earth, so that I could rest in a sloping position; but thinking the opening of the decayed part too wide for perfect security, I stripped off the bark on the reverse side, of which to form a shutter, or loose door, which I might pull towards the opening when fairly ensconced within the hollow. Having thus prepared my bed, I instinctively cast a look round, as an undefinable sense of danger crept over me; the first movement brought my eyes in contact with those of a large jaguar, the tiger of that country. He was standing upright, about eight yards distant, apparently surveying me from head to foot. I was paralyzed with fear, and remained fixed to the spot; the animal gave me a second and third look, then took two or three bounds, and was out of sight in an instant. It is to this moment my fixed opinion, one confirmed by subsequent experience, that I owe my life to the passive manner in which I stood, and which was occasioned by fright; the slightest movement on my part would have occasioned alarm in the jaguar, and proved fatal.
With regard to the jaguar's prowess, he is little less formidable than the Bengal tiger: cows and young bulls he destroys with ease and avidity; but the horse is his favourite prey. All these large animals he kills by leaping on their backs, placing one paw upon their head, another on the muzzle, and thus contriving, in a moment, to break the neck of his victim. The jaguar, although as ferocious as the tiger, rarely attacks man unprovoked, or unless very hungry; but in general he finds no scarcity of food in the regions in which I was located.
I now debated with myself whether I should enter the tree, foolishly imagining that the animal designed to take me asleep. At length the gloominess of the night enshrouded me in darkness, and left me no alternative but to spring into my cabin, and pull the pieces of bark before the aperture. I will not attempt to describe the fearful trepidation in which I was placed: the darkness of the night rendered the hollow of the tree like a tomb, and I viewed it as a coffin; every movement of a twig was, to my imagination, the jaguar removing my barricade with an intention of clawing me out for prey. The scene was rendered more horrible by the contrast with that of the morning, to which the mind would revert, in spite of surrounding horrors—one was the reality of the fabled Elysium, the other that of the Tartarean fields. Just as I had thought I had now experienced the acme of terrors, my fright was augmented by something fluttering round my head, the noise from which seemed as if an animal was struggling to disentangle itself from a snare. Shakspere, describing the effects of fright, speaks of its causing
"Each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine."
I will not affirm that the hairs of my head rose to that height, but I may safely aver that no mortal had ever more cause for exhibiting all the known symptoms of extreme fright. In a second or two after I heard the fluttering, I received repeated blows on the head and face, indubitable proofs that I had a quarrelsome fellow lodger. Present and immediate dangers chase all others. I kicked away my temporary shutter; but before I could make my exit I felt, by the motion of the air, that a living thing had passed me in rapid flight.
The terrors of night in the forest