Note 17 — Chapter VI · APPROACHING THE ANDES

Both in the Orinoco and in the Meta we saw quite a number of porpoises—toninas, the Spaniards call them—quite as large and as playful as any we ever saw in the ocean. The natives say they are the friends of man, and defend him from caymans when he happens to be in the river.17 One thing is certain and that is that caymans and crocodiles both quickly make their escape when the porpoise appears. It is probably, because the sluggish and indolent caymans, ferocious as they are by nature, have an instinctive dread of the noisy and impetuous evolutions of these delphinine cetaceans, especially when they move in schools.