AN INTERESTING CAMP 135 



tapir, he reminded me of something I had completely 

 forgotten. When, some six years previously, he had 

 spoken to me in the White House about taking this 

 South American trip, I had answered that I could not, 

 as I intended to go to Africa ; but added that I hoped 

 some day to go to South America, and that if I did so 

 I should try to shoot both a jaguar and a tapir, as they 

 were the characteristic big-game animals of the country. 

 " Well," said Father Zahm, " now you've shot them 

 both !" The storm continued heavy until after sunset. 

 Then the rain stopped, and the full moon broke through 

 the cloud-rack. Father Zahm and I walked up and 

 down in the moonlight, talking of many things, from 

 Dante, and our own plans for the future, to the deeds 

 and the wanderings of the old-time Spanish conquista- 

 dores in their search for the Gilded King, and of the 

 Portuguese adventurers who then divided with them the 

 mastery of the oceans and of the unknown continents 

 beyond. 



This was an attractive and interesting camp in more 

 ways than one. The vaqueiros with their wives and 

 families were housed on the two sides of the field in 

 which our tents were pitched. On one side was a big, 

 whitewashed, tile-roofed house in which the foreman 

 dwelt — an olive-skinned, slightly built, wiry man, with 

 an olive-skinned wife and eight as pretty, fair-haired 

 children as one could wish to see. He usually went 

 barefoot, and his manners were not merely good but 

 distinguished. Corrals and out-buildings were near this 

 big house. On the opposite side of the field stood the 

 row of steep-roofed, palm-thatched huts in which the 

 ordinary cow-hands lived with their dusky helpmeets 

 and children. Each night from these palm-thatched 

 quarters we heard the faint sounds of a music that 



