SIGHT IN SAVAGES 171 



foot where he can safely set it, or, quickly choos- 

 ing between two evils, where the prickles and 

 thorns are softest, or, for some reason known to 

 him, hurt least. In like manner he distinguishes 

 the coiled-up venomous snake, although it lies so 

 motionless a habit common to the most deadly 

 kinds and in its dull imitative coloring is so diffi- 

 cult to be distinguished on the brown earth, and 

 among gray sticks and sere and variegated leaves. 



A friend of mine, Fontana of Buenos Ayres, 

 who has a life-long acquaintance with the Argen- 

 tine Indians, expresses the opinion that at the age 

 of twelve years the savage of the Pampas has 

 completed his education, and is thereafter able to 

 take care of himself; but that the savage of the 

 Gran Chaco the sub-tropical Argentine territory 

 bordering on Paraguay and Bolivia if left to 

 shift for himself at that age would speedily per- 

 ish, since he is then only in the middle of his long, 

 difficult, and painful apprenticeship. It was curi- 

 ous and pitiful, he says, to see the little Indian 

 children in the Chaco, when their skins were yet 

 tender, stealing away from their mother, and try- 

 ing to follow the larger ones playing at a distance. 

 At every step they would fall, and get pricked 

 with thorns or cut with sharp-edged rushes, and 

 tangled in the creepers, and hurt and crying they 

 would struggle on, and in this painful manner 

 learn at last where to set their feet. 



The snake on the ground, colored like the 

 ground, and shaped like the dead curved sticks 



