fish were in it; yet as soon as he put his foot into the water one of them attacked him and bit off a toe.  On another occasion while wading across a narrow stream one of his party was attacked; the fish bit him on the thighs and buttocks, and when he put down his hands tore them also; he was near the bank and by a rush reached it and swung himself out of the water by means of an overhanging limb of a tree; but he was terribly injured, and it took him six months before his wounds healed and he recovered.  An extraordinary incident occurred on another trip.  The party were without food and very hungry.  On reaching a stream they dynamited it, and waded in to seize the stunned fish as they floated on the surface.  One man, Lieutenant Pyrineus, having his hands full, tried to hold one fish by putting its head into his mouth; it was a piranha and seemingly stunned, but in a moment it recovered and bit a big section out of his tongue.  Such a hemorrhage followed that his life was saved with the utmost difficulty.  On another occasion a member of the party was off by himself on a mule.  The mule came into camp alone.  Following his track back they came to a ford, where in the water they found the skeleton of the dead man, his clothes uninjured but every particle of flesh stripped from his bones.  Whether he had drowned, and the fishes had then eaten his body, or whether they had killed him it was impossible to say.  They had not hurt the clothes, getting in under them, which made it seem likely that there had been no struggle.  These man-eating fish are a veritable scourge in the waters they frequent.  But it must not be understood by this that the piranhas—­or, for the matter of that, the New-World caymans and crocodiles—­ever become such dreaded foes of man as for instance the man-eating crocodiles of Africa.  Accidents occur, and there are certain places where swimming and bathing are dangerous; but in most places the people swim freely, although they are usually careful to find spots they believe safe or else to keep together and make a splashing in the water.

During his trips Colonel Rondon had met with various experiences with wild creatures.  The Paraguayan caymans are not ordinarily dangerous to man; but they do sometimes become man-eaters and should be destroyed whenever the opportunity offers.  The huge caymans and crocodiles of the Amazon are far more dangerous, and the colonel knew of repeated instances where men, women and children had become their victims.  Once while dynamiting a stream for fish for his starving party he partially stunned a giant anaconda, which he killed as it crept slowly off.  He said that it was of a size that no other anaconda he had ever seen even approached, and that in his opinion such a brute if hungry would readily attack a full-grown man.  Twice smaller anacondas had attacked his dogs; one was carried under water—­for the anaconda is a water-loving serpent—­but he rescued it.  One of his men was bitten by a jararaca; he killed the venomous snake, but was not discovered and brought back to camp until it was too late to save his life.  The puma Colonel Rondon had found to be as cowardly as I have always found it, but the jaguar was a formidable beast, which occasionally turned man-eater, and often charged savagely when brought to bay.  He had known a hunter to be killed by a jaguar he was following in thick grass cover.