68 A JAGUAR-HUNT ON THE TAQUARY 



tinction the wild life which is an asset of such interest 

 and value in our several lands ; but the case against 

 civilized man ia this matter is gruesomely heavy any- 

 how, when the plain truth is told, and it is harmed by 

 exaggeration. 



After five or six hours' travelling through this country 

 of marsh and of palm forest we reached the ranch for 

 which we were heading. In the neighbourhood 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 

 quadrangle, surrounded by a fence or low stockade. 

 One end of the quadrangle was formed by the ranch-house 

 itself, one story high, with whitewashed walls and red- 

 tiled roof Inside, the rooms were bare, with clean, 

 whitewashed walls and palm-trunk rafters. There were 

 solid wooden shutters on the unglazed windows. We 

 slept in hammocks or on cots, and we feasted royally 

 on delicious native Brazilian dishes. On another side 

 of the quadrangle stood another long, low white build- 

 ing with a red-tiled roof ; this held the kitchen and the 

 living-rooms of the upper-grade peons, the headmen, 

 the cook, the jaguar-hunters, with their families : dark- 

 skirmed men, their wives showdng varied strains of white, 

 Indian, and negro blood. The children tumbled mer- 

 rily in the dust, and were fondly tended by their mothers. 

 Opposite the kitchen stood a row of buildings, some 

 whitewashed daub-and- wattle, with tin roofs, others of 

 erect palm-logs with palm-leaf thatch. These were the 



