76 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



test all edible-looking things as to the healthfulness of which 

 the adventurers felt doubtful; and because of the obvious 

 resemblance of function we christened this younger hunter 

 Nips. Our guides were not only hunters but cattle-herders. 

 The coarse dead grass is burned to make room for the 

 green young grass on which the cattle thrive. Every now 

 and then one of the men, as he rode ahead of us, without 

 leaving the saddle, would drop a lighted match into a tus- 

 sock of tall dead blades; and even as we who were behind 

 rode by tongues of hot flame would be shooting up and 

 a local prairie fire would have started. 



Kermit took Nips off with him for a solitary hunt one 

 day. He shot two of the big marsh-deer, a buck and a 

 doe, and preserved them as museum specimens. They 

 were in the papyrus growth, but their stomachs contained 

 only the fine marsh-grass which grows in the water and on 

 the land along the edges of the swamps; the papyrus was 

 used only for cover, not for food. The buck had two big 

 scent-glands beside the nostrils; in the doe these were rudi- 

 mentary. On this day Kermit also came across a herd of 

 the big, fierce white-lipped peccary; at the sound of their 

 grunting Nips promptly spurred his horse and took to his 

 heels, explaining that the peccaries would charge them, 

 hamstring the horses, and kill the riders. Kermit went 

 into the jungle after the truculent little wild hogs on foot 

 and followed them for an hour, but never was able to 

 catch sight of them. 



In the afternoon of this same day one of the jaguar- 

 hunters — merely ranch hands, who knew something of the 

 chase of the jaguar — ^who had been searching for tracks 

 rode in with the information that he had found fresh sign 



