up the River of Tapirs 145 



the future, to the deeds and the wanderings of the old- 

 time Spanish conquistadores in their search for the Gilded 

 King, and of the Portuguese adventurers who then di- 

 vided with them the mastery of the oceans and of the 

 unknown continents beyond. 



This was an attractive and interesting camp in more 

 ways than one. The vaqueiros with their wives and fami- 

 lies were housed on the two sides of the field in which our 

 tents were pitched. On one side was a big, whitewashed, 

 tile-roofed house in which the foreman dwelt — ^an olive- 

 skinned, slightly built, wiry man, with an olive-skinned 

 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 old 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, hanging nests of one of the cacique orioles. We 

 lived well, with plenty of tapir beef, which was good, and 



