The Wide World Magazine.
No. 132. Vol. XXII. MARCH, 1909.
SHORT STORIES.
A further instalment of a budget of breezy little narratives—exciting, humorous, and curious—hailing from all parts of the world. This month's collection deals with a thrilling fight between a jaguar and a boa-constrictor, the tragic fate of a Canadian cowboy, and a night adventure in Japan.
HOW I GOT MY JAGUAR-SKIN.
By Dr. T. A. Stoddard.
IN the month of November, 1907, I arrived at the Isthmus of Panama to do some zoological work, and incidentally to get a better knowledge of the geography of the infant republic. I landed at Colon, a dirty, dingy town of about eight thousand inhabitants, built on a low, swampy island separated from the mainland by a narrow but deep lagoon. Here I secured the services of two Spaniards to act as carriers, and, going by boat some ten miles up the coast, disembarked in a drenching rain near the mouth of the Santa Rita River.