144, MARTIN RATTLER.

This is well known to the jaguar, its mortal foe,
which attacks it on land, and fastening on these soft
parts, soon succeeds in killing it; but should the
alligator get the jaguar into its powerful jaws, or
catch it in the water, it is certain to come off the
conqueror.

The Amazon, at its mouth, is more like a wide
lake or arm of the sea than a river. Mention has
been already made of this noble stream in the hermit’s
story ; but it is worthy of more particular notice, for
truly the Amazon is in many respects a wonderful
river. It is the largest, though not quite the longest,
in the world. Taking its rise among the rocky
solitudes of the great mountain range of the Andes,
it flows through nearly four thousand miles of the
continent in an easterly direction, trending northward
towards its mouth, and entering the Atlantic Ocean
on the northern coast of South America, directly
under the equator. In its course it receives the
waters of nearly all the great rivers of central South
America, and thousands of smaller tributaries, so
that when it reaches the ocean its volume of water is
enormous. Some idea may be formed of its majestic
size from the fact that one of its tributaries—the
Rio Negro—is fifteen hundred miles long, and varying

in breadth, being a mile wide not far from its mouth, «