90 A JAGUAR-HUNT ON THE TAQUARY 



ground, and the galloping beast would be stopped short 

 and whirled completely round when the rope tautened. 

 The maddened bulls, and an occasional steer or cow, 

 charged again and again with furious wrath ; but two 

 or three ropes would settle on the doomed beast, and 

 down it would go ; and when it was released and rose 

 and charged once more, with greater fury than ever, the 

 men, shouting with laughter, would leap up the sides of 

 the heavy stockade. 



We stayed at the ranch until a couple of days before 

 Christmas. Hitherto the weather had been lovely. The 

 night before we left there was a torrential tropic down- 

 pour. It was not unexpected, for we had been told 

 that the rainy season was overdue. The following fore- 

 noon the baggage started, in a couple of two-wheeled 

 ox- carts, for the landing where the steamboat awaited 

 us. Each cart was drawn by eight oxen. The huge 

 wheels were over seven feet high. Early in the after- 

 noon we followed on horseback, and overtook the carts 

 as darkness fell, just before we reached the landing on 

 the river's bank. The last few miles, after the final 

 reaches of higher, tree-clad ground had been passed, 

 were across a level plain of low ground on which the 

 water stood, sometimes only up to the ankles of a man 

 on foot, sometimes as high as his waist. Directly in 

 front of us, many leagues distant, rose the bold moun- 

 tains that lie west of Corumba. Behind them the sun 

 was setting and kindled the overcast heavens with lurid 

 splendour. Then the last rose tints faded from the sky ; 

 the horses plodded wearily through the water ; on every 

 side stretched the marsh, vast, lonely, desolate in the 

 grey of the half-light. We overtook the ox-carts. The 

 cattle strained in the yokes ; the drivers wading along- 

 side cracked their whips and uttered strange cries ; the 



