Note 16 — Chapter XII · THE VALLEY OF THE MAGDALENA

Mr. F. Lorraine Petre evidently had an experience somewhat similar to ours. In his recent work on Colombia, he tells us frankly that one sees little of animal life on the Magdalena, that “of the mammalia one sees and hears little.... Of the jaguars, the pumas, the sloths, the peccaries, the deer, the tapirs, and other animals, dangerous or harmless, we saw or heard as little as we did of the bears which inhabit the hills beyond. It is surprising that, tied up, as we often were, right against the forest, we should not have heard the night call of the carnivora, or the sharp bark of the frightened deer, but truth compels us to admit that we did not, and, moreover, that the cry of even the howling monkey did not salute us.”16