118 HEADWATERS OF THE PARAGUAY 



and the ranch has to protect itself. These cow-hands, 

 vaqueiros, were of the type with which we were now 

 famihar : dark-skinned, lean, hard-faced men, in slouch- 

 hats, worn shirts and trousers, and fringed leather aprons, 

 with heavy spurs on their bare feet. They are wonder- 

 ful riders and ropers, and fear neither man nor beast. 

 I noticed one Indian vagueiro standing in exactly the 

 attitude of a ShiHuk of the White Nile, with the sole 

 of one foot against the other leg, above the knee. This 

 is a region with extraordinary possibilities of cattle- 

 raising. 



At this ranch there was a tannery, a slaughter-house, 

 a cannery, a church, buildings of various kinds and aU 

 degrees of comfort for the thirty or forty famiUes who 

 made the place their headquarters ; and the handsome, 

 white, two-story big house, standing among lemon- 

 trees and flamboyants on the river-brink. There were 

 all kinds of pets around the house. The most fascinating 

 was a wee spotted fawn, which loved being petted. 

 Half a dozen curassows of different species strolled 

 through the rooms ; there were also parrots of several 

 different species, and immediately outside the house 

 four or five herons, with undipped wings, which would 

 let us come within a few feet and then fly gracefully off, 

 shortly afterward returning to the same spot. They 

 included big and little white egrets and also the mauve 

 and pearl-coloured heron, with a partially black head 

 and many-coloured bill, which flies with quick, re- 

 peated wing-flappings, instead of the usual slow heron 

 wing-beats. 



In the warehouse were scores of skins of jaguar, 

 puma, ocelot, and jaguarundi, and one skin of the big, 

 small-toothed red wolf. These were all brought in by 

 the cow-hands and by friendly Indians, a price being 



