UP THE RIVER OF TAPIRS 141 



wife and eight as pretty, fair-haired children as one could 

 wish to see. He usually went barefoot, and his manners 

 were not merely good but distinguished. Corrals and out- 

 buildings were near this big house. On the opposite side 

 of the field stood the row of steep-roofed, palm-thatched 

 huts in which the ordinary cowhands lived with their 

 dusky helpmeets and children. Each night from these 

 palm-thatched quarters we heard the faint sounds of a 

 music that went far back of civilization to a savage ances- 

 try near by in point of time and otherwise immeasurably 

 remote; for through the still, hot air, under the brilliant 

 moonlight, we heard the monotonous throbbing of a tom- 

 tom drum, and the twanging of some odd stringed instru- 

 ment. The small black turkey-buzzards, here always 

 called crows, were as tame as chickens near the big house, 

 walking on the ground or perched in the trees beside the 

 corral, waiting for the offal of the slaughtered cattle. Two 

 palm-trees near our tent were crowded with the long, hang- 

 ing nests of one of the cacique orioles. We lived well, 

 with plenty of tapir beef, which was good, and venison of 

 the bush deer, which was excellent; and as much ordi- 

 nary beef as we wished, and fresh milk, too — a rarity in 

 this country. There were very few mosquitoes, and every- 

 thing was as comfortable as possible. 



The tapir I killed was a big one. I did not wish to 

 kill another, unless, of course, it became advisable to do 

 so for food; whereas I did wish to get some specimens of 

 the big, white-lipped peccary, the "queixa" (pronounced 

 "cashada") of the Brazilians, which would make our col- 

 lection of the big mammals of the Brazilian forests almost 

 complete. The remaining members of the party killed 



