It is the bark (meaning the coriaceous covering) of the putrefied caymanthat is the cause," say the natives.
I knew," said the young girl of Uritucu coolly, "that the cayman lets go his hold, if you push your fingers into his eyes.
Tis the black cayman on the hill above the fort," whispered Turnpenny to Dennis.
Twas without doubt a cayman slipping off into deep water; and by the token, 'tis a guide for us, for the reptile haunts the banks of rivers, and sure the very creek we be looking for will be somewheres anigh here.
The screams of the poor fellow were terrible, as the Cayman was running off with him.
In contrast were somecayman eggs, which the boys dug up on a sandy shore while hunting turtles with Jacome.
Mr. Brewster promptly drilled it with a rifle shot, the cayman measured only twelve feet, when it was hauled on board the kitchen monteria.
After repeated attempts to regain his liberty, the cayman gave in, exhausted.
Now, it is evident that if the caymanswallowed this, the other end of the rope (which was thirty yards long) being fastened to a tree, the more he pulled the faster the barbs would stick into his stomach.
Next morning was found a cayman ten feet and a half long, fast to the end of the rope.
Soon afterwards the mist lifted, and the lofty trees which grew on the great Cayman could be seen rising out of the water some fifteen miles off, appearing like a grove of masts emerging from the ocean.
That is neither the head nor tail of the big sea serpent, but a shoal of turtles, which having come from the Bay of Honduras, are bound for the Cayman Islands, where they are going to lay their eggs?
The Cayman islands, in that neighborhood, are the summit of mountains bordering this deep valley at the bottom of the sea.
She will lead the Frenchman a wild goose chase among the Cayman Isles, where he will be most likely to run aground with his heavy draught of water.
They showed the cayman to the curate, but he seemed inattentive until they told him that the gaping wound had been inflicted by Ibarra.
The cayman seems to have been the only unlucky one.
Yesterday morning the incident of the cayman became known through the town.
A fearful object met my eyes--the cayman of Mexico!
The girls were near the centre; but the cayman had got the start of me, and the water, three feet deep, impeded my progress.
By the time the cayman was within two yards of me I saw he was in a state of fear and perturbation.
We found a caymanten feet and a half long fast to the end of the rope.
They looked and stared at each other, and said I might do it myself, but they would have no hand in it; the cayman would worry some of us.
As there was nothing particular in this animal I thought it better to attend to the apparatus for catching the cayman than to go in quest of the couguar.
The screams of the poor fellow were terrible as the cayman was running off with him.
We had hooks and lines and baits and patience; we had spent nights in watching, had seen the cayman come and take the bait, and after our expectations had been wound up to the highest pitch all ended in disappointment.
It was so unlike anything alive that I doubted if it were a cayman; but the Indian smiled and said he was sure it was one, for he remembered seeing a cayman some years ago when he was in the Essequibo.
From this we intended to shoot an arrow into the cayman: at the end of this arrow was to be attached a string which would be tied to the rope, and as soon as the cayman was struck we were to have the canoe ready and pursue him in the river.
I had come above three hundred miles on purpose to get a cayman uninjured, and not to carry back a mutilated specimen.
Illustration: cayman bait] Having done this we went back to the hammocks, not intending to visit it again till morning.
I placed all the people at the end of the rope, and ordered them to pull till the cayman appeared on the surface of the water, and then, should he plunge, to slacken the rope and let him go again into the deep.
We were at supper when the Indian, who seemed to have had one eye on the turtle-pot and the other on the bait in the river, said he saw the cayman coming.
The early explorers of the New World had many stories to tell about the cayman and the crocodile, and many of them have apparently survived among the natives until the present day.
The name cayman is employed in Venezuela and Colombia to designate any of these saurians.
Following the classification adopted in the British Museum the caymanis distinct from both alligator and crocodile.
The man beneath the liquid mass can easily bear the additional pressure, and if anything was to be feared below the waters it was rather some cayman who might there be met with.
At this moment Torres rushed from the cabin, hatchet in hand, and struck such a terrific blow that its edge sunk into the jaw of the cayman and left him defenseless.
Benito recoiled, and, in spite of the assertions of the pilot, the thought recurred to him that some living cayman might even then be met with in the deeps near the Bar of Frias!
During the ten hours we have been at work have you seen a single cayman in the river?
The screams of the poor fellow were terrible as the Cayman was running off with him; he plunged in the river with his prey; we instantly lost sight of him, and never saw or heard him more.
Meanwhile the cayman reared his enormous head out of the water, threw himself upon the horse, and seized him by the saddle.
We uttered a shout of warning; he at once perceived the danger, and, to avoid it, got off his horse at the opposite side to that upon which the cayman was approaching, and swam with all his strength toward the bank.
I had the nets spread at intervals, so that the cayman could not escape back into the lake.
But he was scarcely halfway cross when we saw a cayman of monstrous size advancing toward him.
Nevertheless, this little bullet-hole was the cause of its death; and here it is to be noted that the slightest wound received by the cayman is incurable.
But it might very well have happened that the cayman was in the interval between the nets, and so have gobbled up my Indian.
The horse made an effort, the girths broke, and, while the cayman crunched the leather, the steed reached dry land.
Perceiving that the saddle was not what he wanted, the cayman dropped it and advanced upon the Indian.
I also had a hut built, and put an Indian to live in it, whose duty was to keep constant watch and to let me know as soon as the cayman returned to the river.
It was fortunate the cayman had not taken the wrong prey.
Several Indians began to drag it toward the bank, and presently, to our great joy, we saw the cayman upon the surface of the water, expiring.
Soon, however, finding that his prey had escaped, the cayman dropped the saddle, and made towards the Indian.
Several of the Indians began to drag it towards the bank, and presently, to our great joy, we saw the cayman upon the surface of the water.
The cayman does not masticate, he snaps off a huge lump with his teeth, and swallows it entire.
Nevertheless, this little bullet hole was the cause of its death; and here it is to be observed, that the slightest wound received by the cayman is incurable.
The lance thrust which had slain the cayman was a chance--a sort of miracle.
A month after the frightful occurrence the cayman was found dead upon the bank, five or six leagues from my house.
I also had a hut built, and put an Indian to live in it, whose duty was to keep constant watch, and to let me know as soon as the cayman returned to the river.
He had scarcely got half-way across, when we perceived a monstrous cayman rise and advance to meet him.
The whole was then fastened to a post driven into the sand, and the attention of the cayman aroused to what was going on by some sharp blows on an empty tortoiseshell, which served as a drum.
But the watchers on shore pulled the rope too soon, and the caymandropped the bait at once.
He waited till the cayman was within a few feet of him, when he flung away his pole, and with a flying leap landed on the cayman's back, twisting up the creature's feet and holding tightly on to them.
Let them conceal a hook in the bait ever so cleverly, the cayman was sure to be cleverer than they, and when morning came, the bait was always gone and the hook always left.
To Waterton the only fear was, lest the rope should prove too weak for the strain, in which case he and the cayman would promptly disappear into the depths of the Essequibo.
But the caymanwas not to be caught without a struggle.
But happily the rope was strong, and after being dragged by the Indians for forty yards along the sand, the cayman gave in, and Waterton contrived to tie his jaws together, and to lash his feet on to his back.
The Indians, however, had no intention of allowing the caymanto beat them in the long run, and one of them invented a new hook, which this time was destined to better luck.
If the Indians refused their help, the cayman could not be taken alive at all, and if they gave it, it was only at the price of injuring the animal and spoiling its skin.
As one cayman called another answered; and although caymans are not very common anywhere, that night you would have thought that the world was full of them.
Evidently they did not molest either cayman or capybara while it was unwounded; but blood excited them to frenzy.
But much more extraordinary was the fact that when a cayman about five feet long was wounded the piranhas attacked and tore it, and actually drove it out on the bank to face its human foes.
A dead cayman floated down-stream, with a black vulture devouring it.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "cayman" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
