“Ah!” said Fitz, with a sigh. “I thought it was something worse.”
“Couldn’t have been any worse for the monkey,” said Poole, laughing.
“No,” continued Fitz thoughtfully; “but I didn’t know there were jaguars here.”
“Didn’t you, my lad?” said the skipper quietly. “Why, we are just at the edge of the impenetrable jungle. There is only this strip of land between it and the sea, and the only way into it is up that little river. If we were to row up there we should have right and left pretty well every wild creature that inhabits the South American jungles: tigers—you have had a taste of the snakes this afternoon—water-hogs, tapirs, pumas too, I dare say. There goes another of those great alligators slapping the water with his tail.”
“Would there be any of the great serpents?” asked Fitz.
“Any number,” replied the skipper, “if we could penetrate to where they are; the great tree-living ones, and those water-boas that live among the swamps and pools.”
“They grow very big, don’t they?” said Fitz, who began to find the conversation interesting.
“All sizes. Big as you or me round the thickest part, and as long as—”
“A hundred feet?” said Poole.
“Well, I don’t know about that, my boy,” said the skipper. “I shouldn’t like to meet one that size. I saw the skin of one that was over thirty, and I have heard tell by people out here that they had seen them five-and-forty and fifty feet long. They may grow to that size in these hot, steamy jungles. There is no reason why they shouldn’t, when whales grow to seventy or eighty feet long in the sea; but I believe those monster anacondas of fifty feet long were only skins, and that either they or the stories had been very much stretched.”