38 UP THE PARAGUAY [chap, ii 



with black wings. Darters, with snake-like necks and 

 pointed bills, perched in the trees on the brink of the 

 river. Snowy egrets flapped across the marshes. Cay- 

 mans were common, 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 weU settled country, where bananas 

 and oranges were cultivated and other crops of hot 

 countries 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 terraces marked successive periods 

 of flood. A belt of forest 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 mos- 

 quitoes and many other winged insect pests swarm over 

 it. Cherrie and Miller had spent a week there collect- 

 ing mammals and birds prior to my arrival at Asuncion. 

 They were veterans of the tropics, hardened to the 

 insect plagues of Guiana and the Orinoco. But they 



