UP THE RIVER OF TAPIRS 143 



rhinoceros, persisting after they had vanished; and nowa- 

 days the surviving tapirs are found in Malaysia and South 

 America, far from their original home. The relations of 

 the horse and tapir in the paleontological history of South 

 America are very curious. Both were, geologically speak- 

 ing, comparatively recent immigrants, and if they came at 

 different dates it is almost certain that the horse came 

 later. The horse for an age or two, certainly for many 

 hundreds of thousands of years, throve greatly and devel- 

 oped not only several different species but even different 

 genera. It was much the most highly specialized of the 

 two, and in the other continental regions where both were 

 found the horse outlasted the tapir. But in South America 

 the tapir outlasted the horse. From unknown causes the 

 various genera and species of horses died out, while the 

 tapir has persisted. The highly specialized, highly devel- 

 oped beasts, which represented such a full evolutionary 

 development, died out, while their less specialized remote 

 kinsfolk, which had not developed, clung to life and throve; 

 and this although the direct reverse was occurring in North 

 America and in the Old World. It is one of the innu- 

 merable and at present insoluble problems in the history of 

 life on our planet. 



I spent a couple of days of hard work in getting the big 

 white-lipped peccaries — white-lipped being rather a mis- 

 nomer, as the entire under jaw and lower cheek are white. 

 They were said to be found on the other side of, and some 

 distance back from, the river. Colonel Rondon had sent 

 out one of our attendants, an old follower of his, a full- 

 blood Parcels Indian, to look for tracks. This was an ex- 

 cellent man, who dressed and behaved just like the other 



