40 Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



wings. Darters, with snakelike necks and pointed bills, 

 perched in the trees on the brink of the river. Snowy 

 egrets flapped across the marshes. Caymans were com- 

 mon, and differed from the crocodiles we had seen in 

 Africa in two points: they were not alarmed by the 

 report of a rifle when fired at, and they lay with the 

 head raised instead of stretched along the sand. 



For three days, as we steamed northward toward the 

 Tropic of Capricorn, and then passed it, we were within 

 the Republic of Paraguay. On our right, to the east, 

 there was a fairly well-settled country, where bananas 

 and oranges were cultivated and other crops of hot coun- 

 tries raised. On the banks we passed an occasional small 

 town, or saw a ranch-house close to the river's brink, or 

 stopped for wood at some little settlement. Across the 

 river to the west lay the level, swampy, fertile wastes 

 known as the Chaco, still given over either to the wild 

 Indians or to cattle-ranching on a gigantic scale. The 

 broad river ran in curves between mud-banks where ter- 

 races marked successive periods of flood. A belt of for- 

 est stood on each bank, but it was only a couple of 

 hundred yards wide. Back of it was the open country; 

 on the Chaco side this was a vast plain of grass, dotted 

 with tall, graceful palms. In places the belt of forest 

 vanished and the palm-dotted prairie came to the river's 

 edge. The Chaco is an ideal cattle country, and not 

 really unhealthy. It will be covered with ranches at a 

 not distant day. But mosquitoes and many other winged 

 insect pests swarm over it. Cherrie and Miller had spent 

 a week there collecting mammals and birds prior to my 

 arrival at Asuncion. They were veterans of the tropics. 



