380 The Naturalist in La Plata, 
half-breed’s moustacliej when that natural ornament 
is permitted to grow, and which is composed of 
thick bristles standing out like a cat’s whiskers. 
The mouth was the marvellous feature, for it was 
twice the size of an average mouth, and the two lips 
were alike in thickness. This mouth did not smile, 
but snarled, both when he spoke and when he 
should have smiled ; and when he snarled the whole 
of his teeth and a part of the gums were displayed. 
The teeth were not as in other human beings— 
incisors, canines, and molars : they were all exactly 
alike, above and below, each tooth a gleaming white 
triangle, broad at the gum where it touched its 
companion teeth, and with a point sharp as the 
sharpest-pointed dagger. They were like the teeth 
of a shark or crocodile, I noticed that when he 
showed them, which was very often, they were not 
set together as in dogs, wmasels, and other savage 
snarling animals, but apart, showing the whole 
terrible serration in the huge red mouth. 
After getting his gin he joined in the boisterous 
conversation with the others, and this gave me an 
opportunity of studying his face for several minutes, 
all the time with a curious feeling that I had put 
myself into a cage with a savage animal of horrible 
aspect, whose instincts were utterly unknown to 
me, and were probably not very pleasant. It Avas 
interesting to note that Avhenever one of the others 
addressed him directly, or turned to him Avhen speak- 
ing, it was with a curious expression, not of fear, 
but partly amusement and partly something else 
which I could not fathom. Novv, one might think 
that this was natural enough purely on account of 
