South American Jungle Tales

by Horacio Quiroga

The panthers that were killed in the water, sank to the bottom where the horn-pouts ate them. Others kept afloat, and the shiners went down the Yabebirì with them, all the way to the Parana, having a great feast off panther meat, and jumping and hopping along the top of the water to express their delight. When the friends of the wounded man came to get him, they skinned the panthers that were lying on the shore; and the man’s wife had a set of new rugs for her dining room.

Soon the man got well again. And the rays, who have a great many children each year, were as numerous as ever after one season. The man was so grateful for what they had done in trying to save his life, that he built a bungalow on the island and went there to live during his vacations. On nights in summer, when the moon was shining, he would go out in front of his bungalow and sit down on a rock over the water to smoke his pipe. The rays would creep up softly over the bottom and point him out to fish who did not know him. “There he is, see? The panthers came across over here; we stood in line over there. And when the panthers broke through, the man took his rifle, and....”

THE STORY OF TWO RACCOON CUBS AND TWO MAN CUBS

Once there was a mother raccoon who had three cubs; they all lived in the woods eating fruits and berries and birds’ eggs. Whenever they were on a tree top and heard a noise, they would jump head foremost to the ground and scamper off with their tails in the air.

One day when the cubs had grown to be quite large sized raccoons, their mother took them up all together to the top of an orange tree—you must know that in South America orange trees, which came originally from Spain, now grow wild in the forest—and spoke to them as follows:

“Cublets, you are almost big enough to be called raccoons; and it is time you began to hunt for your meals by yourselves. It is very important for you to know how to do this, because, when you get to be old, you will go around all alone in the world, as all raccoons do. The oldest of you likes snails and cockroaches. He must hunt around woodpiles and under trunks of rotting trees, where there are always plenty of snails and cockroaches. The next to the oldest of you seems to like oranges. Up to the month of December there will be plenty of oranges right here in this grove. The youngest of you is always asking for birds’ eggs. Well, there are birds’ nests everywhere. All he will have to do is hunt. But one thing, however: he must never go down to the farm looking for eggs. It is very bad for raccoons to go near farms.

“Cublets, there is one thing more you must all be afraid of: dogs! dogs! Never go near a dog! Once I had a fight with a dog. Do you see this broken tooth? Well, I broke it in a fight with a dog! And so I know what I am talking about! And behind dogs come people, with guns, and the guns make a great noise, and kill raccoons. Whenever you hear a dog, or a man, or a gun, jump for your lives no matter how high the tree is, and run, run, run! If you don’t they will kill you as sure as preaching!”

That is what the mother raccoon said to her cublets. Whereupon, they all got down from the tree top, and went each his own way, nosing about in the leaves from right to left and from left to right, as though they were looking for something they had lost. For that is the way raccoons hunt.

The biggest of the cubs, who liked snails and cockroaches, looked under every piece of dead wood he came to and overturned the piles of dead leaves. Soon he had eaten such a fine meal that he grew sleepy and lay down in a nice cozy bed of leaves and went to sleep. The second one, who liked oranges, did not move from that very grove. He just went from one tree to another eating the best oranges; and he did not have to jump from a tree top once; for neither men, nor dogs, nor guns, came anywhere near him.

But the youngest, who would have nothing but birds’ eggs, had a harder time of it. He hunted and hunted over the hillsides all day long and found only two birds’ nests—one belonging to a toucan, with three eggs in it, and the other belonging to a wood dove, with two eggs in it. Five tiny little eggs! That was not very much to eat for a raccoon almost big enough to go to school. When evening came the little cub was as hungry as he had been that morning; and he sat down, all cold and tired and lonesome, on the very edge of the forest.