The chase of the jaguar requires great caution, yet keen sportsmen will venture, single-handed, to seek the jaguar in his lair, armed with a blow-pipe and poisoned arrows, or merely with a long and powerful lance. The praise which is due to the bold adventurers for their courage is, however, too often tarnished by their cruelty. Thus, a famous jaguar-hunter once showed Pöppig a large cavity under the tangled roots of a giant bombax-tree, where he had some time back discovered a female jaguar with her young. Dexterously rolling down a large stone, he closed the entrance, and then with fiendish delight slowly smoked the animals to death, by applying fire from time to time to their dungeon. Having lost one-half of his scalp in a previous conflict with a jaguar, he pleaded his sufferings as an excuse for his barbarity.
To attack these creatures with a lance, a sure arm, a cool determined courage, and great bodily strength and dexterity are required; but even these qualities do not always ensure success if the hunter is unacquainted with the artifices of the animal. The jaguar generally waits for the attack in a sitting posture, turning one side towards the assailant, and, as if unconcerned, moves his long tail to and fro. The hunter, carefully observing the eye of his adversary, repeatedly menaces him with slight thrusts of his lance, which a gentle stroke of the paw playfully wards off; then seizing a favourable moment, he suddenly steps forward and plunges his weapon into his side. If the thrust be well aimed, a second is not necessary, for pressing with his full weight on the lance, the huntsman enlarges and deepens the mortal wound. But if the stroke is parried or glances off, the jaguar, roused to fury, bounds on his aggressor, and fells him to the ground with a stroke of his paw. Having his enemy now fully in his power, the jaguar looks at him quietly for a few moments as if enjoying his pangs, like a cat playing with a mouse, and this short delay has not seldom enabled the companion of the unfortunate hunter to save his life by a timely shot.
All those that have escaped from one of these death-struggles affirm that the breath of the enraged animal is of a suffocating heat, with a smell like that of burning capsicum, and that its pestilential contact produces an inflammation of the throat, which lasts for several days. Those who are less inclined to desperate conflicts destroy the jaguar by poisoned pieces of meat, or else they lay pitfalls for him, when they kill him without running any personal risk. Like the cayman, the jaguar, after having once tasted the flesh of man, is said to prefer it to anything else. During his first solitary journeys through the American wilds, the traveller’s sensations, on meeting with the fresh footmarks of the monster, are like those of Robinson Crusoe when he discovered the vestiges of the savage on the beach of his lonely island; but as the animal itself very rarely crosses the wanderer’s path, he at length becomes completely indifferent, and roams about the wilderness as unconcernedly as if no beasts of prey existed under the forest shade, or among the high grasses of the savannah. During his long residence in Yuarmangua, Pöppig met but one jaguar, who, not deeming it advisable to engage in hostilities, slowly retreated into the woods.
In the Brazilian campos great devastations are caused among the herds by the jaguar, who has strength enough to drag an ox to some distance. He frequently kills several bullocks in one night, and sucks their blood, leaving their flesh for a future repast. When, after having satiated himself, he retires to a neighbouring thicket, the vaqueros or herdsmen follow his bloody trail with their hounds; and as soon as the jaguar sees the pack approach, he seeks to climb the inclined trunk of a tree, and is then shot down from his insecure station. But the chase does not always terminate without accident or loss of life, as very strong jaguars will face the dogs, kill several of them, and frequently carry them away and devour them.
While Prince Maximilian of Neu Wied was travelling through the campos, he heard of the heroic conflict of three vaqueros with a monstrous jaguar that had never been known to retreat. One day, while following their herds through the woods, their dogs discovered the fresh foot-prints of the beast, and following the scent, soon brought it to a stand. Armed merely with their long lance-like varas, the bold men did not long deliberate, but resolutely advanced towards the jaguar, who stood confronting the dogs, and immediately bounding upon his new antagonists, wounded them one after the other, though not without receiving repeated thrusts of their lances and knives. The least determined of the three, appalled by his wounds, at first retreated, but seeing the boldest of his companions lying prostrate under the paws of the monster, his courage revived, and the attack being vigorously renewed, the jaguar was at length killed. The bleeding and exhausted heroes were hardly able to crawl home in the evening. They pointed out the spot where they had fought, and where the jaguar was found swimming in his blood, surrounded by the dogs which he had torn to pieces.
It is a general belief among the Indians and the white inhabitants of Bengal that the jaguar has the power of fascination. Many accounts are given to prove this; among others, a person informed Mr. Wallace that he had seen a jaguar standing at the foot of a high tree looking up into it. On the top was a howling monkey looking down at the jaguar, and jumping about from side to side, crying piteously. The jaguar stood still, the monkey continued descending lower and lower on the branches, still uttering its cries, till at length it fell down at the very feet of the jaguar, who seized and devoured it.
There is a black variety of the jaguar, on whose dark skin the ring-formed spots are still visible, and which is said to surpass the common species in size and ferocity.
The Couguar, or the Puma, as he is called by the Indians, is far inferior to the jaguar in courage, and consequently far less dangerous to man. On account of his brownish-red colour and great size, being the largest felis of the new world, he has also been named the American lion, but he has neither the mane nor the noble bearing of the ‘king of animals.’ In spite of his strength he is of so cowardly a disposition that he invariably takes to flight at the approach of man, and consequently inspires no fear on being met with in the wilderness; while even the boldest hunter instinctively starts back when, winding through the forest, he suddenly sees the sparkling eye of the jaguar intently fixed upon him.
The puma has a much wider range than the jaguar, for while the latter reaches in South America only to the forty-fifth degree of latitude, and does not rove northwards beyond Sonora and New Mexico, the former roams from the Straits of Magellan to the Canadian lakes. The jaguar seldom ascends the mountains to a greater height than 3,000 feet, while in the warmer lateral valleys of the Andes the puma frequently lies in ambush for the vicuñas at an elevation of 10,000 feet above the level of the sea. He can climb trees with great facility, ascending even vertical trunks, and, like the lynx, will watch the opportunity of springing on such animals as happen to pass beneath. No less cruel than cowardly, he will destroy without necessity forty or fifty sheep when the occasion offers, and content himself with licking the blood of his victims. When caught young, he is easily tamed, and, like the common cat, shows his fondness at being caressed by the same kind of gentle purrings. Tschudi informs us that the Indians of the northern provinces frequently bring pumas to Lima, to show them for money. They either lead them by a rope, or carry them in a sack upon their back, until the sight-seers have assembled in sufficient number.
Besides the puma or the jaguar, tropical America possesses the beautifully variegated Ocelot (Felis pardalis); the Oscollo (F. celidogaster); the spotless, black-grey Jaguarundi (F. jaguarundi), which is not much larger than the European wild cat; the long-tailed, striped, and spotted Margay or Tiger-cat, and several other felidæ. All these smaller species hardly ever become dangerous to man, but they cause the death of many an agouti and cavy; and, with prodigious leaps, the affrighted monkey flies from their approach into the deepest recesses of the forest.