122 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



now familiar: dark-skinned, lean, hard-faced men, in slouch- 

 hats, worn shirts and trousers, and fringed leather aprons, 

 with heavy spurs on their bare feet. They are wonderful 

 riders and ropers, and fear neither man nor beast. I no- 

 ticed one Indian vaqueiro standing in exactly the attitude 

 of a Shilluk of the White Nile, with the sole of one foot 

 against the other leg, above the knee. This is a region with 

 extraordinary possibilities of cattle-raising. 



At this ranch there was a tannery; a slaughter-house; 

 a cannery; a church; buildings of various kinds and all 

 degrees of comfort for the thirty or forty families who 

 made the place their headquarters; and the handsome, 

 white, two-story big house, standing among lemon-trees and 

 flamboyants on the river-brink. There were all kinds of 

 pets around the house. The most fascinating was a wee, 

 spotted fawn which loved being petted. Half a dozen cu- 

 rassows of different species strolled through the rooms; 

 there were also parrots of several different species, and 

 immediately outside the house four or five herons, with 

 undipped wings, which would let us come within a few 

 feet and then fly gracefully off, shortly afterward returning 

 to the same spot. They included big and little white egrets 

 and also the mauve and pearl-colored heron, with a par- 

 tially black head and many-colored bill, which flies with 

 quick, repeated wing-flappings, instead of the usual slow 

 heron wing-beats. 



In the warehouse were scores of skins of jaguar, puma, 

 ocelot, and jaguarundi, and one skin of the big, small- 

 toothed red wolf. These were all brought in by the cow- 

 hands and by friendly Indians, a price being put on each, 

 as they destroyed the stock. The jaguars occasionally 



