The Opelousas courier., 1897-09-18
FIELDS OF ADVENTURE,
THRILLING INCIDENTS AND DARING
DEEDS ON LAND AND SEA,

OEEOo YIN LAND AND SEA-
Adventures With South American ia
guars-A Hunters Run from One and
an Indians Brave Effort to Saws Her
Child-shooting q Canyon in Alaska.
Yin the autumn of 1892 I was stay
ing at a ranch on the Alta (upper(
Orinoco, in the partly open lands OF
the cattle region of Venezuela" said
Sidney Ascot, who has travelled South
America from n end to the other, in
the New York Sun. zone day my
friend, Ellis Grell, a noted cattle ex-
porter, at whose house I was a guest,
proposed that we go out with our shot
guns for pewas, as the wild turkeys of
that region are called. I was reading
an interesting novel at the time, SO
when we started out with our guns, a
lunch, and pockets full of corn, I took
the book along with me, for T knew
that pewa hunting meant hours of 81
lent waiting, which reading would help
to while away. When we got to the
place we meant to hunt, Grell and I
separated SC as to cover more country.
I found a spot to suit me, rugged up a
blind of green branches, and then
dropped the corn along in lines, all
leading, from considerable distances
away, up to the blino,> to entice the
turkeys within shooting>range. Then
I seated myself comfortably behind
the blind, and taking out the novel,
began to read.
"The story was a good one, and as
I was expecting nothing but turkeys
to arrive, T did not at first pay much
attention to a rustling sound that after
a time came to my ears from a tree
that stood q few PAGES away, so neal
that the tip of one of its lower
branches almost overhung me. I
merely glanced up among the leaves,
and seeing nothing to cause the sound,
thought that it was made by a bird or
monkey, and went On with my read
ing. In place Of the rustling came
another sound, a steady fip-fap,
which I could not understand, and I
looked up into the tree more carefully;
but still seeing nothing to alarm me
[ turned again to my book. I should
not have found the novel so interest
ing had I known, as presently I found
out, that the rustling was caused by
a jaguar lying upon a limb of the tree
within easy springing distance of me,
and the faip-fapping sound was made
by his tail.
"a turkey came along at last, a soli-
tary one, and I shot it directly opposite
the blind. The instant the bird fell
struggling the jaguar leaped from the
tree upon it, struck it down with his
paw, and turning, crouched, growing,
as if to spring upon me. The only
cartridges I had along were loaded
with fine shot, and there was but
left in my gun. I did the only thing
possible to save myself and fred at
the jaguar's head, destroying both of
his eyes. He sprang, but the shot
made him swerve, and he landed to
one side of me, giving me a chance to
run. Blinded as he was, the jaguar chased
me all the way home to the ranch
house, guided only by the sound of my
movements and his sense of smell.
Running slap against tree trunks and
whatever else might be in his way, he
nevertheless led me so close a chase
that had not my path laid through
woods he certainly would have over
taken me. I had no cartridges with
which to pepper him as I ran, having
left my cartridge belt on the ground at
the blind with my book in the hurry
of getting away.
"a garden fence before the house
the jaguar, and, while he was
nosing along it trying to get through,
I had time to dash indoors and get
some buckshot cartridges for my gun,
with which I came out and finished
him. I had had a close call, closer
than v I ri to repeat; and I never
went out shooting again in the tropics
without taking both ball and buckshot
with me. That the jaguar
lay SO long in the tree without spring
ing directly upon me I attribute to
the probability that he was not very
hungry. 1T was the sight of the fut-
turkey, its natural prey, and the
smell of its blood that woke the jaguar's
savage instincts.
'tIn the village Of Nutrias, up the
Orinoco, I ia an Indian named Josefa
who bore sad marks of a
juguar's teeth and claws, being famed
for life, and she incurred them in de-
Tending her child from being carried
away. It occurred in this way: As
she sat ct her door one day with the
child beside her a iaguar suddenly ap-
peared, seized the child, and turned
to dart away with II into the forest. In
the neither grabbed the
beast by the tail and held on. The
dropped the child, and, turning
upon Josefa, with one stroke Of his paw
tore through flesh and muscles from
her hip to her knee. Again he seized
The child, and again the mother
him by the tail. This time
the jaguar attacked her more savagely
han before, tearing her with his claws
and biting her terribly in the breast.
Once more the brute seizedthe child, |
out the little ~fve-year-old Indian, with
he jaguar's teeth in it's hip, fought SO
iercely, hammering the beasts head
With his fists, and at last pushing its
niger into his eye, that the jaguar
dropped it for a third time.
tsBy this time the father came up
md attacked the jaguar with his
nachete. In his excitement he missed
he first stroke, merely severing one
If the jaguar's ears. Again he struck,
Is the animal turned on him, this time