Some attempts have been made, both on the Orinoco and the Magdalena, to secure the hides of crocodiles and caymans for commercial purposes, but the expense of preparing them for the market proved to be so great that the work had to be abandoned.[19]
The early explorers of the New World had many stories to tell about the cayman and the crocodile, and many of them have apparently survived among the natives until the present day. But there were many other animals that made even a greater impression on them. It will suffice to reproduce Peter Martyr’s quaint account of two of these representatives of the American fauna. The first is the tapir, of which he writes as follows:—
“But there is especially one beast engendered here, in which nature hath endeuoured to shew her cunnyng. This beaste is as bygge as an oxe, armed with a longe snoute lyke an elephant, and yet no elephant. Of the colour of an oxe and yet noo oxe. With the houfe of a horse, and yet noo horse. With eares also much lyke vnto an elephant, but not soo open nor soo much hangying downe: yet much wyder then the eares of any other beaste.”[20]
The other animal that excited the wonder of Martyr and his contemporaries was the sloth, of which he says:— “Emonge these trees is fownde that monstrous beaste with a snowte lyke a foxe, a tayle lyke a marmasette, eares lyke a batte, handes lyke a man, and feete lyke an ape, bearing her whelpes abowte with her in an owtwarde bellye much lyke vnto a greate bagge or purse. The dead carkas of this beaste, you sawe with me, and turned it ouer and ouer with yowre owne handes, marueylynge at that newe belly and wonderful prouision of nature. They say it is knownen by experience, that shee neuer letteth her whelpes goo owte of that purse, except it be eyther to play, or to sucke, vntyl suche tyme that they bee able to gette theyr lyuing by them selues.”[21]
The part of the valley below the confluence of the Cauca and the Magdalena was quite different from that above. The country contained more inhabitants, and the dense forests that had hitherto bordered the river gave place to broad savannas, on which grazed thousands of cattle, so buried in the Para and Guinea grasses, that frequently we could discern only their horns. Along the river banks were the estates of well-to-do haciendados—some of them foreigners—and the villages, that before were extremely rare, became more numerous. The aspect of the country was less wild than that through which we had just passed, and betokened a certain measure of prosperity, at least so far as the grazing interests were concerned.
We could now travel day and night, for the river was so deep that sand bars were no longer to be apprehended. And then we had the most delightful moonlight nights. The air was balmy and laden with an exquisite fragrance,
“Mild as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes,”
a constant invitation to repose and dolce far niente. The surpassing loveliness of the scene, the magic stillness of the vast solitude through which we were so peacefully gliding, the broad expanse of one of the world’s great rivers, the weird silhouettes cast by the passing palms on the moonlit waters—all these things contributed towards rendering our last night on the river a fitting finale to the others—all of which were in the highest degree enjoyable. Seated on the forward deck of our steamer, we could exclaim in the words of the choric song of Tennyson’s Lotos-Eaters:—
“How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem