“In a moment I was surrounded by a dark mass of angry creatures, leaping wildly at my legs, uttering shrill grunts, and making their teeth crack like castanets.
“I ran for the highest part of the log, but this proved no security. The peccaries leaped upon it, and followed. I struck with the butt of my clubbed gun, and knocked them off; but again they surrounded me, leaping upward and snapping at my legs, until hardly a shred remained of my trousers.
“I saw that I was in extreme peril, and put forth all my energies. I swept my gun wildly around me; but where one of the fierce brutes was knocked over, another leaped into his place, as determined as he. Still I had no help for it, and I shouted at the top of my voice, all the while battling with desperation.
“I still kept upon the highest point of the log, as there they could not all come around me at once; and I saw that I could thus better defend myself. But even with this advantage, the assaults of the animals were so incessant, and my exertions in keeping them off so continuous, that I was in danger of falling into their jaws from very exhaustion.
“I was growing weak and wearied—I was beginning to despair for my life—when on winding my gun over my head in order to give force to my blows, I felt it strike against something behind me. It was the branch of a tree, that stretched over the spot where I was standing.
“A new thought came suddenly into my mind. Could I climb the tree? I knew that they could not, and in the tree I should be safe.
“I looked upward; the branch was within reach. I seized upon it and brought it nearer. I drew a long breath, and with all the strength that remained in my body sprang upward.
“I succeeded in getting upon the limb, and the next moment I had crawled along it, and sat close in by the trunk. I breathed freely—I was safe.
“It was some time before I thought of anything else than resting myself. I remained a full half-hour before I moved in my perch. Occasionally I looked down at my late tormentors. I saw that instead of going off, they were still there. They ran around the root of the tree, leaping up against its trunk, and tearing the bark with their teeth. They kept constantly uttering their shrill, disagreeable grunts; and the odour, resembling the smell of musk and garlic, which they emitted from their dorsal glands, almost stifled me. I saw that they showed no disposition to retire, but, on the contrary, were determined to make me stand siege.
“Now and then they passed out to where their dead comrade lay upon the grass, but this seemed only to bind their resolution the faster, for they always returned again, grunting as fiercely as ever.