I amused myself much with fishing in the pool, in which there were large numbers of an active kind of fish, varying from ten to sixteen inches in length, of reddish color, and voracious appetites. Toward evening, when the flies settled down near the surface, they rose like the trout, and kept the pool boiling with their swift leaping after their prey. I improved my limited experience in fly-fishing at home, to devise impromptu insects, and astonished Antonio with that, to him, novel device in the piscatory art. These fish, with an occasional wild turkey, the latter generally tough and insipid, constituted about our only food. Ducks, curlews, and snipe, so common in the vicinity of the lagoons, were here unknown, and we listened in vain for the cry of the chachalaca. There were, however, numerous birds of song, and of bright plumage, but not fit for food. I saw some owls; and now and then a large hawk would settle down sullenly on the trees which overhung the pool. Gray-squirrels also occasionally rustled the branches above our heads, but the foliage was so dense that I was only successful in obtaining a single specimen. Once a squadron of monkeys came trooping through the tree-tops to rob the plantain-grove, but a charge of buckshot, which brought two of them to the ground, was effectual in deterring them from a second visit. They were of a small variety, body black, face white, and “whiskered like a pard.” Antonio cooked one of them in the sand, but he looked so much like a singed baby which I once saw taken out of the ruins of a fire in Ann-street, that I could not bring myself to taste him. So my Indian had an undisputed monopoly of the monkey.
But the most exciting incident, connected with our stay on the banks of the Tirolas, was one which I can never recall without going into a fit of laughter—although, at the time, I did not regard it as remarkably amusing. Among the wild animals most common in Central America, is the peccary, sometimes called “Mexican hog,” but best known by the Spanish name of Savalino. There is another animal, something similar to the peccary, supposed to be the common hog run wild, called Javalino by the Spaniards, and Waree by the Mosquitos. If not indigenous, the latter certainly have multiplied to an enormous extent, since they swarm all over the more thickly-wooded portions of the country. They closely resemble the wild-boar of Europe, and, although less in size, seem to be equally ferocious. They go in droves, and are not at all particular as to their food, eating ravenously snakes and reptiles of all kinds. They have also a rational relish for fruits, and especially for plantains and bananas, and would prove a real scourge to the plantations, were they always able to break down the stalks supporting the fruit. Unable to do this, they nevertheless pay regular visits to the plantations, in the hope of finding a tree blown down, and of feasting on the fallen clusters.
With these intimations as to their character and habits, the reader will be better qualified to appreciate the incident alluded to. It was a pleasant afternoon, and I had strolled off with my gun, in the direction of the plantain-patch, stopping occasionally to listen to the clear, flute-like notes of some unseen bird, or to watch a brilliant lizard, as it flashed across the gray stones. Thus sauntering carelessly along, my attention was suddenly arrested by a peculiar noise, as if of some animal, or rather of many animals engaged in eating. I stopped, and peered in every direction to discover the cause, when finally my eyes rested upon what I at once took to be a pig of most tempting proportions. He was moving slowly, with his nose to the ground, as if in search of food. Without withdrawing my gaze, I carefully raised my gun, and fired. It was loaded with buckshot, and although the animal fell, he rose again immediately, and began to make off. Of course I hurried after him, with the view of finishing my work with my knife—but I had not taken ten steps, when it appeared to me as if every stick, stone, and bush had been converted into a pig! Hogs rose on all sides, with bristling backs, and tusks of appalling length. I comprehended my danger in an instant, and had barely time to leap into the forks of a low, scraggy tree, before they were at its foot. I shall never forget the malicious look of their little bead-like eyes, as they raved around my roosting-place, and snapped ineffectually at my heels. Although I felt pretty secure, I discreetly clambered higher, and, fixing myself firmly in my seat, revenged myself by firing a charge of bird-shot in the face of the savagest of my assailants. This insult only excited the brutes the more, and they ground their teeth, and frothed around the tree in a perfect paroxysm of porcine rage.
THE WAREE.
I next loaded both barrels of my gun with ball, and deliberately shot two others through their heads, killing them on the spot, vainly imagining that thereby I should disperse the herd. But never was man more mistaken. The survivors nosed around their dead companions for a moment, and then renewed their vicious contemplations of my position. Some squatted themselves upon their hams, as much as to say that they intended to wait for me, and were nowise in a hurry! So I loaded up again, and slaughtered two more of the largest and most spiteful. But, even then, there were no signs of retreat; on the contrary, it seemed to me as if reënforcements sprang out of the ground, and that my besiegers grew every moment more numerous!
How long this might have lasted, I am unprepared to say, had not Antonio, alarmed at my rapid firing, hastened to my rescue. No sooner did my assailants catch sight of his swarthy figure than they made after him with a vehement rush. He avoided them by leaping upon a rock, and then commenced a most extraordinary and murderous contest. Never did a battalion of veteran soldiers charge upon an enemy, with more steadiness than those wild pigs upon the Indian. He was armed with only a lance, but every blow brought down a porker. Half alarmed lest they should finally overmatch him, I cheered his exploits, and kept up a brisk fire by way of a diversion in his favor. I am ashamed to say how many of those pigs we killed; it is, perhaps, enough to add, that it was long after dark before the beasts made up their minds to leave us uneaten. And it was with a decided sensation of relief that we heard them moving off, until their low grunt was lost in the distance.
At one time, the odds were certainly against us, and it seemed not improbable that the artist and his adventures might both come to a pitiful and far from a poetical end. But fortune favored, and my faithful gun now hangs over my table in boar-tusk brackets, triumphal trophies from that bloody field! Instead of being eaten, we ate, wherein consists a difference; but I was ever after wary of the waree!
True to his promise, on the evening of the tenth day, my Poyer boy bounded into our encampment, with a loud shout of joy. His friends were behind, and he said would reach us in the following afternoon. There were five of them, sober, silent men, who made their encampment apart from us, and whom I vainly endeavored to engage in conversation. They displayed great aptness in packing our various articles in net-work sacks, which they carried on their backs, supported by bands passing around their foreheads. They wore no clothes except the tournou, unless sandals of tapir-hide, and a narrow-brimmed hat, braided of palm-bark, fall within that denomination. Besides his sack, each man carried a peculiar kind of machete, short and curved like a pruning-hook; only one or two had bows.
It was with real regret that I left our encampment beside the bright pool, and abandoned my old and now familiar canoe, in the sides of which, like a true Yankee, I had carved my name, and the dates of my adventures. I turned to look back more than once, as we filed away, beneath the trees, in the trail leading to the mountains. The Indians led the way, while Antonio and myself brought up the rear. “El Moro,” perched upon the tallest pack, shrieked and fluttered his wings, occasionally scrambling down to take a mischievous bite at the ear of his Indian carrier. Whenever he was successful in accomplishing this feat, he became superlatively happy and gleeful. In default of other amusement, he sometimes suspended himself from the netting by a single claw, like a dead bird, with drooping wings and dangling head, and then suddenly scrambled back again to his perch, with triumphant screams. He was a rare rollicking bird, that same Moro!