72 Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



Africa; and in our own day he has repeated the feat, 

 on a very large scale, in the rest of Africa and in North 

 America. But in South America, although he is in places 

 responsible for the wanton slaughter of the most inter- 

 esting and the largest, or the most beautiful, birds, his 

 advent has meant a positive enrichment of the wild mam- 

 malian fauna. None of the native grass-eating mammals, 

 the graminivores, approach in size and beauty the herds 

 of wild or half-wild cattle and horses, or so add to the 

 interest of the landscape. There is every reason why the 

 good people of South America should waken, as we of 

 North America, very late in the day, are beginning to 

 waken, and as the peoples of northern Europe — not 

 southern Europe — have already partially wakened, to 

 the duty of preserving from impoverishment and ex- 

 tinction the wild life which is an asset of such interest 

 and value in our several lands ; but the case against civil- 

 ized man in this matter is grewsomely heavy anyhow, 

 when the plain truth is told, and it is harmed by ex- 

 aggeration. 



After five or six hours' travelling through this coun- 

 try of marsh and of palm forest we reached the ranch 

 for which we were heading. In the neighborhood stood 

 giant fig-trees, singly or in groups, with dense, dark- 

 green foliage. Ponds, overgrown with water-plants, lay 

 about; wet meadow, and drier pastureland, open or 

 dotted with palms and varied with tree jungle, stretched 

 for many miles on every hand. There are some thirty 

 thousand head of cattle on the ranch, besides herds of 

 horses and droves of swine, and a few flocks of sheep 

 and goats. The home buildings of the ranch stood in a 



