40 UP THE PARAGUAY [chap, ii 



men, in the United States, in England, France, Ger- 

 many, Italy — the men like Doctor Cruz in Rio Janeiro 

 and Doctor Vital Brazil in Sao Paulo — who work ex- 

 perimentally within and without the laboratory in their 

 warfare against the disease and death bearing insects 

 and microbes, are the true leaders in the fight to make 

 the tropics the home of civilized man. 



Late on the evening of the second day of our trip, 

 just before midnight, we reached Concepcion. On this 

 day, when we stopped for wood or to get provisions — at 

 picturesque places, where the women from rough mud 

 and thatched cabins were washing clothes in the river, 

 or where ragged horsemen stood gazing at us from the 

 bank, or where dark, well-dressed ranchmen stood in 

 front of red-roofed houses — we caught many fish. They 

 belonged to one of the most formidable genera of fish in 

 the world, the piranha, or cannibal fish, the fish that eats 

 men when it can get the chance. Farther north there 

 are species of small piranha that go in schools. At this 

 point on the Paraguay the piranha do not seem to go in 

 regular schools, but they swarm in all the waters, and 

 attain a length of eighteen inches or over. They are 

 the most ferocious fish in the world. Even the most 

 formidable fish, the sharks, or the barracudas, usually 

 attack things smaller than themselves. But the piranhas 

 habitually attack things much larger than themselves. 

 They will snap a finger off a hand incautiously trailed 

 in the water ; they mutilate swimmers — in every river 

 town in Paraguay there are men who have been thus 

 mutilated ; they wiU rend and devour alive any wounded 

 man or beast ; for blood in the water excites them to 

 madness. They will tear wounded wild fowl to pieces, 

 and bite off" the tails of big fish as they grow exhausted 

 when fighting after being hooked. Miller, before I 



