female presence of mind.

They related to us the history of a young girl of Uritucu, who by singular intrepidity and presence of mind saved herself from the jaws of a crocodile.

When she felt herself seized, she sought the eyes of the animal, and plunged her fingers into them with such violence, that the pain forced the crocodile to let her loose, after having bitten off the lower part of her left arm.

The girl, notwithstanding the enormous quantity of blood she lost, happily reached the shore, swimming with the hand she had still left.

In those desert countries, where man is ever wrestling with nature, discourse daily turns on the means that may be employed to escape from a tiger, a boa or traga venado, or a crocodile; every one prepares himself in some sort of way for the dangers that await him.

“I knew,” said the young girl of Uritucu, coolly, “that the cayman lets go his hold if you push your fingers into his eyes.”

Long after my return to Europe I learned that, in the interior of Africa, the negroes know and practise the same means.

Who does not recollect with a lively interest Isaaco, the guide of the unfortunate Mungo Park, seized twice, near Boulinkombou, by a crocodile, and twice escaping from the jaws of the monster, having succeeded in placing his fingers, under water, in both his eyes?

The African Isaaco, and the young American, owed their safety to the same presence of mind, and the same combinations of ideas.—De Humboldt’s Travels in South America.