Note 17 — Chapter XII · THE VALLEY OF THE MAGDALENA

The large animals most frequently seen along the Magdalena, as along other tropical rivers, are those horrid monsters, “ambiguous between sea and land,” the cayman and “the scaly crocodile.” But even they are not so numerous as certain travelers would have us believe. The largest number we ever saw at one time was fifteen. They were sunning themselves on a playa—sand bank—below the island of Mompos. On the Orinoco and the Meta we never beheld more than eight at any one time—unless we were to count a number of little ones, just hatched, which Luisito, our colored boy, caught one day while we were taking on wood on the lower Meta.17