| Show I For Our Youth I H 1 DWAIT WITH AN ANACONDA An Unexpected Rival BY W THOMPSON On my second expedition into northern north-ern Brazil some years ago we camped for several weeks on the Rio Branco about > 100 miles above Its junction with the Rio Negro one of the principal confluents of the Amazon The rainy season was past and although al-though we were almost on the equatorial equa-torial line the weather was not unendurably unen-durably hot the constantlyblowing eastern trade winds greatly reducing its temperature and rendering our big tent J tched in the shade of an immense im-mense raman tree a comfortable abode Our party consisted of eleven men ten Americans and a newly caught IrishmanTeddy OBrien by name who more for the sake of divilment and divarshun than 540 a mouth as lie had said had engaged with us as cook And a truly wonderful cook he wasHowever However as we all survived his ingenious in-genious experiments in that line it would perhaps be ungrateful to specify spec-ify them Anyhow the fellow earned his salary twice over by the inexhaustible inexhaus-tible flow of merriment that kept our digestive organs in condition to assimilate assimi-late the most erratic of his culinary creations Wbile some members of our party were amateur botanists geologists naturalists or taxidermists we were all enthusiastic explorers and hunters and we fairly reveled in the wealth of animal and vegetable life about usOur Our sixton boat moored in the river was fast becoming a museum Representing Repre-senting the countrys flora we had dried plants shrubs and flowers without with-out end in the way of reptiles a stuffed cayman several striped rattlesnakes one tweli efoot boa and a great variety of lizards while in insects our collection collec-tion was exceedingly rich Of the feathered tribe we had almost everything every-thing from the mighty condor of the Andes down to minute humming birds and of fishesbesides a fine electric eelone or more specimens of nearly I every kind found in the island waters of the tropics Of wild beasts we had already shot and set up the jaguar red wolf cougar cou-gar pecoary oulot tapir tigercat wild dog three kinds of deer the sloth and armadillo as well as six varieties of monkeys and a number of other I small arboreal creatures But there was one amphibious ani I mal the manatu and a semiamphib1 I ious reptile the anaconda we had not yet obtained We had seen scores of the first while ascending the river but bad never secured one though it is a somewhat sluggish creature and not at all difficult of approach as it feeds I upon aquatic plants at the bottom of still water and comes frequently to the Surface to breathe One evening we were bemoaning our bad luck in this respect when Teddy observed Art is it the quare baste thats a cros becune amermaid an a fish that yere afther wan tin Fain II its meself can put ye ahn to the cray thur thin in no time All right Teddy Lets have your plan said Tom Alden Its alsier nor rowlin down hill me bhje Up beyaut theres phwat yez call a lagoon an the ar ind av it runs t up bike a late infil thim thick woods Schure its not tin schteps acrass an be the same token Ol seen a man ri manlstee is it an a good lamp av a oung wan frolickin round there bright an airly this same blissid mor nin The wather in thim parts is moighty shoal Im thinkin for whin the ofd baste was feedin ahn the bottom bot-tom the baby ud schramble up ivery now and thin an roosht ahn her back 4 kapin its own wee paddle av a tail in the wather koind of sophible bike I Sorra bit thruble for some av yez to consale yersilves ahn both sides av the lane an bag the two crathurs Teddys idea seeming a good one at daybreak next morning four of us taking our rifles a barbed grappling Iron and a coil of rope set off for the lagoon a grassgrown stretch of stagnant stag-nant water lying parallel to the river I and at its nearer end about a haif mile from our camp Just It Teddy bad earn we found Its further or northern extremity to consist con-sist of a narrow creek and this was closely bqrdered on both sides by water I palms gum rubber saman trees and gigantic treeferns with a dense undergrowth under-growth of bushes while running through all reaching to and binding together the loftiest treetops was a wondrous network of liana vines amid watch when we arrived innumerable onbnkeys were just beginning their morning sports J With somo difficulty our quartet comprising com-prising Tom Alden two other men and myself gained the westward margin of l the watery lane where we esconced ourselves In the matted brushwood deeming It prudent to take opposite l sides for fear of accidents in possible I rc crossfiring I i We were perfectly concealed from all b J observation except that of the jeering monkeys who looking down on us from their leafy heights kept up a ceaseless clamor of derisive cries For nearly an hour wfe crouched I It r watching in motionless attention the I Jf pond > Burface seeing a lazilyfloating i J l b D r bi1 < i1 non no-n Q C1 = 4 J J capman or two but no sign of the game we sought Directly fronting us on the east side of the creek there lay not more than nine yards away the fallen trunk of a laurel tree from which rose several broken and partly decayed branches the whole being in deep shade as the sun had not yet risen high enough to fully light that part of the island While we were patiently waiting Alden nudged me and whispered See what beautifully variegated moss covers cov-ers one of those limb stubs We must gather some of it before we go back to camp I was about to make some commonplace common-place reply when thirty or forty yards south of us I noticed a slight undulation undula-tion of the water and presently there appeared above its surface first the head and then the back of a fullgrown I I = = The Caymans Were Coming monster followed immediately by alike a-like emerging of a calf a comical looking look-ing little creature not half as long as its mother After inhaling air for a half minute or so the pair sank again and as we plainly saw by the ripples began to feed on bottomgrowing plants along the east shore and directly toward the head of the lagoon The next time they rose for air they Were twenty yards near us than before be-fore and I whispered to Alden Wait WailI till they get into the shadow between t t f f I j M1Jrr tijrJ I I I L f j J il 1 3L The Terrific Shock I jus and the big log then when their I heads show you take the old one and Ill take the youngster shoot straight for the brain and theyll never know what llUrls them Tom nodded assent and we waited in silence The water shoaled so rapidly now that by the time the animals were abreast of us and within three feet of the laural log the mothers rounded back appeared above the surface and the little one using its handlike flipper to climb with scrambled upon it rid ing exactly as I have seen the young of an African hippopotamus In another moment the bId monster lifted her head and making a sign to my two other companions not to shoot Tom and I quietly thrust our rifle barrels through the bushes took careful aim and were about to fire That instant however Toms beautifully variegated moss leaped Into sudden life A flashing streak of black tawny brown and yellow shot out from the dead branch and in the twinkling of an eye the calfs muzzle was fast between the recurving fangs of a monstrous anaconda Then while the helpless creature rolled off its mothers back there was a gleaming whirl of circling rings a cyclone of concentive coils a churning of the center into foam and almost before we could realize the startling scene the mighty serpent had crushed the life out of its prey But as the reptile compressed its overlapping folds tighter and tighter two simultaneously fired bullets shat tered its flat head and its great length slowly uncoiling straightened out along the bloodstained surface of the creek Apparently paralyzed by fright the mother still stood with her head above water staring at the floating serpent and her dead calf One of us with more presence of mind than the rest put the beast out of misery by a shot through the brain Thus most unexpectedly we had killed at one time the several specimens we were anxious to obtain The next thing was to secure the bodies for already al-ready attracted by the scent of blood no less thanfive caymans were making I for the spot I I Leaving our riflemen to dispose of i thesean easy task with his repeater the otherthree of us forced our way round the head of the creek to the laurel log and by the aid of grapnel and rope towed the carcasses a little way down the east side and hauled them up on a projecting sandbar where they could readily be reached by boat From the point of the curiously cleft upper lip to the extremity of her flatted tail the old monster measured eight feet and four inches while the calfs total length fell a fraction short of three and onehalf feet The anaconda was the largest I have ever seen prov 1 c 1 I r 1 G J r 1 4 Y 1 ± 1r U I ing to be twentyone feet and eight Inches long Though the reptile rarely attacks man unless indeed he is in or very close to water we could not while measuring him express someshudders as we reflectea what might have happened hap-pened in case we had killed the monsters mon-sters when we first leveled on them and then without noticing the lying inwait monster had gone round to the log to draw in the bodies The anaconda called by the natives of Brazil the great water serpent must not be confounded with any other member mem-ber of the boa family proper from which it greatly differs not only in coloration but also in structural form habits and size The South America I boa seldom exceeds thirteen feet in length while the anaconda not infrequently infre-quently attains the length of thirty feet being excelled in this respect by only one variety of the Asiatic python a tree and rock haunting reptile said by some writers to reach the length of sixty feet It may be so but the largest I one I ever saw or was creditably informed I in-formed of measured a scant thirtytwo feetWhen When John Harding the cayman killer rejoined us Tom Alden and I set off for camp leaving him to guard our prizes from possible attack of wild beasts Besides our heavy boats we had a large but very light cedar skiff Embarking in this with our two best taxidermists and taking Teddy O Brien along we returned by way of the river to the lagoon the intention being to skin the three creatures where they layWe We had duly posted our fellow sportsmen but had purposely refrained from telling Teddy about the anaconda ana-conda as we wished to see how he would act Necessarily In rowing our backs were turned toward the bow and it was not until the boat grounded on the bar that the honest fellow dropped his oar looked around and saw the great serpent Then we almost regretted re-gretted our trick for with a wild cry of muther muther he sprang to his feet and would have plunged overboard over-board but for restraining hands Being at last convinced however that the monster was really dead he ceased trembling and exclaimed The Lord be bechune us an harrum Anis An-is it riptoils like that yez have in Amerikay Sure the blissed St Path rick spint his strlngth in the wrohg sphot entoirely Its himself wud a hed a folne stiddy job here whoile he wus thriflin wid thim weeny shnakes in ould Oireland not to minshun the sthray toads and sich loike insex Begorra and sorra wan ov mell ever wandther be me lone silf in them wuds agin barrin theres a moighty sthrong lot av ye bhyes wid me And he kept his word |
