ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
In the colony at Tachos, situated on a height, there 
were several neat buildings for the friars and a village 
for the Indians. What interested me most was to see how 
much of the land around had been converted with success 
to agricultural purposes. I inspected the buildings where 
useful trades were taught to the Indians of both sexes. 
Weaving-looms and spinning-wheels had been imported 
at great expense and endless trouble, as well as black¬ 
smiths’ and carpenters’ tools of all kinds. A delightfully 
neat garden, with European flowers, was indeed a great 
joy to one’s eyes, now unaccustomed to so gay and tidy 
a sight. What pleased me most of all was to notice how 
devoted to the Salesians the Indians were, and how happy 
and well cared for they seemed to be. They had the most 
humble reverence for the Fathers. 
Padre Antonio Colbacchini, the Father Superior, an 
Italian, was an extremely intelligent and practical man, 
and one of the hardest workers I have ever met. With 
a great love for science, he had established a small ob¬ 
servatory on a high hill at a considerable distance from 
the mission buildings. The abnegation with which Father 
Clemente Dorozeski, in charge of the instruments, would 
get up in the middle of the night and in all weathers 
to go and watch for the minimum temperature — their 
instruments were primitive, and they did not possess 
self-registering thermometers — was indeed more than 
praiseworthy. 
My readers can easily imagine my surprise when one 
day Padre Colbacchini treated me, after dinner, to an 
orchestral concert of such operas as II Trovatore , Aida, 
and the Barbiere di Seviglia , played on brass and stringed 
instruments by Indian boys. The Bororos showed great 
fondness for music, and readily learned to play any tune 
without knowing a single note of music. Naturally great 
patience was required on the part of the teacher in order 
to obtain a collective melody which would not seriously 
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