The National tribune., 1901-04-25
CANOEING ALONG NICARAGUA.
Adventures Sea and Shore Among the Mosquito Indians
By DR.. ]. HAMPDEN PORTER.

Shortly after the black jaguar's death
some Poyer Indians gave us an account
of his enormities; heavens knows how
many of that unfortunate tribe he had
eaten, and they had hunted him vainly
again and again.
Another narrative concerning an animal
of this species remains to be written, for
which no excuse is offered on the ground
of repetition, since its subject-matter diff
fers greatly from that already recorded
More particularly because any true
story about wild beasts should be regarded
as a contribution to natural history. Be
fore relating this tragic tale, however, one
may mention that the man who told it
bore horrible scars as witnesses to his
veracity. He had been in the clutch of Il
man-eating jaguar; moreover, what was
said conformed so well with many another
recital of facts, that there appeared to be
no room for doubt.
Our party reached the last ridge of those
nights which slope northwards toward
Honduras, and on the west run downward
into Nicaragua. 1t was through this latter
state we intended journeying, on q line
running south of where the great canal
will pass. An incongruous country, in
which civilization and barbariSm jOStle
each other, while modern science and
achievement stand side by side with
crumbling mementoes of peoples who have
done nothing and are now rapidly becOm-
ing extinct.
From the mountain summit where our
camp was made, vast bodies of vapor
mounted and piled themselves mass upon
mass along the western skyline. They
grew and darkened as their sunset glOries
faded. while a gathering haze OverSpread
and blurred that widely-expanded scene.
There was an increasing weight in those
puffS of air which mOaned around this
high pitched bivouac, and when night fell
the heavens foretold wild weather. But
what cared we, who had enscOnced our
selves within a nook that set storms at de-
iance; an indentation, commodious, COM
Portable, and shut in almost completely by
its roof and walls Of rock. With food,
rest, tobacco, here was spot to take ones
ease, and when the storm swooped down
upon crab, ravine, and splintered pinnacle,
was it not then that those who had ex-
perienced lifes perturbations could feel
how far removed they were from all Of
them?
The fires ruddy light flashed against a
black sky, and illuminated an appropriate
ly barbaric group, as Manuel lara told
of his friends who had been destroyed.
Once, drifting aimlessly as men belonging
TO broken tribes will do, he wandered into
q small settlement Of mahogany cutters on
the Mosquito Shore. 1t was an ancient
site, long abandoned before its more recent
occupants arrived, and several massive log
houses, dating back, perhaps, to days such
as that old buccaneer Dampier describes,
still stood here and there amidst the for
est. Manuel encountered an acquaintance
who had taken possession of a dwelling,
where he boarded two other choppers, and
here for the time being the vagrant took
service; that is to say, worked until a lit
tie money became due, and idled while it
lasted. The proprietor, his wife, child
and guests, made six persons in family,
and it is with their fate this story has TO
do. So far as numbers go, man-eating
cats have brought about far more mem
orable tragedies; still, this brute did
lived there among those dark and solitary
woodlands; also to paralyze such powers |
for resistance as they might otherwise |
have exercised, by deeds at once so mys-
terious and terrible, that these people soon |
succumbed to superstitious terror.
First the little boy disappeared. His
mother was getting supper ready against
her husbands return from work with three !
hungry companions, and the child. Just
able to run about, had played in sight but |
moment before. She missed him imme- |
diately; there could have been no possi- |
biHty Of his getting any distance away; |
but not trace remained, nor did any ever |
come TO light, though jaguar's tracks |
in the very shadow of their home made |
plain to these men when they came back |
what this little ones fate had been.
OF course, the whole population at once |
went off into barbaric eXtraYagancies, and |
since IL was not yet established that the |