feet; our hosts' stirrups were long,
narrow silver slippers. The camaradas, on the other hand, had jim-crow
saddles and bridles, and rusty little iron stirrups into which they
thrust their naked toes. But all, gentry and commonalty alike, rode
equally well and with the same skill and fearlessness. To see our
hosts gallop at headlong speed over any kind of country toward the
sound of the dogs with their quarry at bay, or to see them handle
their horses in a morass, was a pleasure. It was equally a pleasure to
see a camarada carrying his heavy spear, leading a hound in a leash,
and using his machete to cut his way through the tangled vine-ropes of
a jungle, all at the same time and all without the slightest reference
to the plunges, and the odd and exceedingly jerky behavior, of his
wild, half-broken horse--for on such a ranch most of the horses are
apt to come in the categories of half-broken or else of broken-down.
One dusky tatterdemalion wore a pair of boots from which he had
removed the soles, his bare, spur-clad feet projecting from beneath
the uppers. He was on a little devil of a stallion, which he rode
blindfold for a couple of miles, and there was a regular circus when
he removed the bandage; but evidently it never occurred to him that
the animal was hardly a comfortable riding-horse for a man going out
hunting and encumbered with a spear, a machete, and other belongings.

The eight hours that we were out we spent chiefly in splashing across
the marshes, with excursions now and then into vine-tangled belts and
clumps of timber. Some of the bayous we had to cross were
uncomfortably boggy. We had to lead the horses through one, wading
ahead of them; and even so two of them mired down, and their saddles
had to be taken off before they could be gotten out. Among the marsh
plants were fields and strips of the great caete rush. These caete
flags towered above the other and lesser marsh plants. They were
higher than the heads of the horsemen. Their two or three huge banana-
like leaves stood straight up on end. The large brilliant flowers--
orange, red, and yellow--were joined into a singularly shaped and
solid string or cluster. Humming-birds buzzed round these flowers; one
species, the sickle-billed hummer, has its bill especially adapted for
use in these queerly shaped blossoms and gets its food only from them,
never appearing around any other plant.

The birds were tame, even those striking and beautiful birds wh