44 Through the BraziHan Wilderness 



swimming or wading where they are found. If cattle 

 are driven into, or of their own accord enter, the water, 

 they are commonly not molested ; but if by chance some 

 unusually big or ferocious specimen of these fearsome 

 fishes does bite an animal — ^taking off part of an ear, 

 or perhaps of a teat from the udder of a cow — the 

 blood brings up every member of the ravenous throng 

 which is anywhere near, and unless the attacked animal 

 can immediately make its escape from the water it is 

 devoured alive. Here on the Paraguay the natives hold 

 them in much respect, whereas the caymans are not feared 

 at all. The only redeeming feature about them is that 

 they are themselves fairly good to eat, although with 

 too many bones. 



At daybreak of the third day, finding we were still 

 moored off Concepcion, we were rowed ashore and 

 strolled off through the streets of the quaint, picturesque 

 old town ; a town which, like Asuncion, was founded by 

 the conquistadores three-quarters of a century before our 

 own English and Dutch forefathers landed in what is 

 now the United States. The Jesuits then took practically 

 complete possession of what is now Paraguay, control- 

 ling and Christianizing the Indians, and raising their 

 flourishing missions to a pitch of prosperity they never 

 elsewhere achieved. They were expelled by the civil 

 authorities (backed by the other representatives of eccle- 

 siastical authority) some fifty years before Spanish 

 South America became independent. But they had al- 

 ready made the language of the Indians, Guarany, a cul- 

 ture-tongue, reducing it to writing, and printing religious 

 books in it. Guarany is one of the most wide-spread of 



