Tree Ferns Twenty And Thirty Feet High Waved
Their Feathery Fronds In The Gentle Breeze, And Wild Pineapples
Growing At Our Feet Loaded The Air With Fragrance.
There was the graceful pepper tree, luxuriant hanging lichens, or
bamboos forty feet high, which riveted the attention and made one
think what a beautiful world God has made.
Many of the shrubs and
plants afford dyes of the richest hues, Azara found four hundred new
species of the feathered tribe in the gorgeous woods and coppices of
Paraguay, and all, with the melancholy caw, caw of the toucans
overhead, spoke of a tropical land. Parrots chattered in the trees,
and sometimes a serpent glided across the red sand road.
Unfortunately, flies were so numerous and so tormenting that, even
with the help of a green branch, we could not keep off the swarms,
and around the horses' eyes were dozens of them. Several menacing
hornets also troubled us. They are there so fierce that they can
easily sting a man or a horse to death!
As night fell we came to an open glade, and there beside a clear,
gurgling brook staked out our horses and camped for the night.
Building a large fire of brushwood, we ate our supper, and then lay
down on our saddlecloths, the firmament of God with its galaxy of
stars as our covering overhead.
By next evening we reached the village of Pegwaomi. On the way we had
passed a house here and there, and had seen children ten or twelve
years of age sucking sticks of sugar-cane, but content with no other
clothing than their rosary, or an image of the Virgin round their
necks, like those the mules wear.
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