HEADWATERS OF THE PARAGUAY 101 



dotted with those noble trees, the royal palms. Other 

 trees, buildings of all kinds, flower-gardens, vegetable-gar- 

 dens, fields, corrals, and enclosures with high white walls 

 stood near the house. A detachment of soldiers or state 

 police, with a band, were in front of the house, and two 

 flagpoles, one with the Brazilian flag already hoisted. The 

 American flag was run up on the other as I stepped ashore, 

 while the band played the national anthems of the two 

 countries. The house held much comfort; and the com- 

 fort was all the more appreciated because even indoors 

 the thermometer stood at 97° F. In the late afternoon 

 heavy rain fell, and cooled the air. We were riding at the 

 time. Around the house the birds were tame: the parrots 

 and parakeets crowded and chattered in the tree tops; 

 jacanas played in the wet ground just back of the garden; 

 ibises and screamers called loudly in the swamps a little 

 distance off^. 



Until we came actually in sight of this great ranch- 

 house we had been passing through a hot, fertile, pleasant 

 wilderness, where the few small palm-roofed houses, each 

 in its little patch of sugar-cane, corn, and mandioc, stood 

 very many miles apart. One of these little houses stood 

 on an old Indian mound, exactly like the mounds which 

 form the only hillocks along the lower Mississippi, and 

 which are also of Indian origin. These occasional Indian 

 mounds, made ages ago, are the highest bits of ground in 

 the immense swamps of the upper Paraguay region. There 

 are still Indian tribes in this neighborhood. We passed an 

 Indian fishing village on the edge of the river, with huts, 

 scaffoldings for drying the fish, hammocks, and rude tables. 

 They cultivated patches of bananas and sugar-cane. Out 



