imated resting-place; and though
l'Encuerado, with his pole, shoved us onward with energy, the numerous
bends hindered our progress, and it seemed as if night would surprise us
still afloat. At last the palm-trees became more crowded, and the stream
emerged from the forest, to cross a prairie; here the raft was moored
under a canopy of creepers.

Our first care was to stretch the tigers' skins on the heated ground,
and, while I was helping l'Encuerado, Sumichrast and Lucien went off in
quest of our dinners. The fire had been for some time burning, when
we heard a distant gunshot.

[Illustration: "The banks of the river were covered with alligators."]

Sumichrast returned laden with a green iguana, and Lucien was dragging
by a string a little alligator about thirty inches long.

"Look, M. L'Encuerado!" cried the boy; "here is an alligator or cayman,
a relation of the lizards, and an enemy of man. This ugly young beast
has only baby-teeth, so can not bite much. It feeds on fish, otters,
calves, and many other animals. It is an amphibious being, M.
L'Encuerado, a creature that lays eggs like fowls, but buries them in
the sand, where the sun has to hatch them; it is a brute, too, which is
so fond of man that it eats him whenever it has a chance."

"Take care it does not bite you," said I to the boy; "how did you manage
to catch it?"

"I pursued it, thinking it was a big lizard; M. Sumichrast called out to
me not to handle it, and then tied this creeper round its neck."

"You don't intend to take it away with you, I hope?"

"No; it is an ill-tempered creature, and is always anxious to use its
teeth. I shall just show it to Master Job, and then let it go."

Neither Job nor his companions seemed flattered by this introduction,
and the boy was disappointed when he deposited it at the water's edge;
for, instead of plunging in, as he expected, it made a semicircle, and
ran off towards the forest.

"Don't young alligators know how to swim?" he asked.

"Yes, Chanito; but they do not go into the water till they are old
enough to defend themselves against the big males, which would devour
them."

The sun had scarcely risen, when I saw on the shore, at about ten paces
from us, three monsters luxuriously stretched out. One of them, from
sixteen to twenty feet long, with a brown and rough body, opened its
enormous jaws and showed us its frightful teeth. I took Lucien by the
hand to lead him nearer to the reptiles, the bett