The house was within a stone’s throw of the Rio Bodoquera--a stream two hundred yards wide. One night a jaguar attacked the cattle and chased them on to a sand-spit that projected out into the stream. We heard the mad bellowing of the frightened animals as they stampeded past the shack, hotly pursued by the snarling jaguar. A few shots sufficed to frighten the big spotted cat back into the jungle, but the cattle refused to leave the strategic position to which they had retreated. The river was rising rapidly, endangering the panic-stricken creatures. Every hand turned out; we took lanterns with us and, manning the canoes, paddled to the far side of the peninsula and attempted to drive them back to the mainland. All our efforts were in vain. The work was very exciting, as enraged members of the herd charged the lights repeatedly when we approached close to them. Finally the water became so deep that the animals had to swim, and then they made for the far side of the river and disappeared from view. It took several days to round them up, but a number were never seen again.
[Illustration: The high, flat-topped panorama of the Andes.]
One day a Franciscan priest stopped at the _rancho_ for a short rest. He was engaged in opening a trail to Mocoa. About twenty _peons_ accompanied him, carrying his outfit. His robe was in tatters and his feet were bare; he had spent months in the jungles and showed the effects of hard usage. Each of his men carried an animal of some kind on top of his pack. There were monkeys, parrots, macaws, and a curious little creature belonging to the agouti family (_Myoprocta_) that they called _tin-tin_. We had seen numbers of the latter along the river-bank, where they lived in burrows. The flesh is white and of fine flavor. In spite of the hardships the priest and his party had endured they were in the best of humor, and after an hour’s halt shouldered their packs and resumed the march. No one will dispute the fact that men of this type have done a great deal toward exploring unknown parts of South America; usually they are the real trail-breakers and lead the way for the pioneer settlers who are to follow.
The bird-life of the Caquetá is typical of the Amazonian forest, and many of the species are found on the lower river two thousand miles away. This is caused by the uniformity of topographical conditions, and the lack of a barrier that would interfere with the range of a species. On all of our visits to the headwaters of the Amazon’s tributaries, in Colombia, Bolivia, and Brazil, a large proportion of the mammals collected were new to science and differed greatly from those found lower down the river’s course. Such large animals as spider-monkeys (_Ateleus_), “flying” monkeys (_Pithecia_), and cats represented forms heretofore unknown to science; the smaller mammals also were new in many instances. Of course, we must not lose sight of the fact that the power of flight gives greater mobility to the birds and accounts for the wider range of some of them, but not for the equally vast distribution of the ground-inhabiting and almost flightless species.