almost certain
that the horse came later. The horse for an age or two, certainly for
many hundreds of thousands of years, throve greatly and developed not
only several different species but even different genera. It was much
the most highly specialized of the two, and in the other continental
regions where both were found the horse outlasted the tapir. But in
South America the tapir outlasted the horse. From unknown causes the
various genera and species of horses died out, while the tapir has
persisted. The highly specialized, highly developed beasts, which
represented such a full evolutionary development, died out, while
their less specialized remote kinsfolk, which had not developed, clung
to life and throve; and this although the direct reverse was occurring
in North America and in the Old World. It is one of the innumerable
and at present insoluble problems in the history of life on our
planet.

I spent a couple of days of hard work in getting the big white-lipped
peccaries--white-lipped being rather a misnomer, as the entire under
jaw and lower cheek are white. They were said to be found on the other
side of, and some distance back from, the river. Colonel Rondon had
sent out one of our attendants, an old follower of his, a full-blood
Parecis Indian, to look for tracks. This was an excellent man, who
dressed and behaved just like the other good men we had, and was
called Antonio Parecis. He found the tracks of a herd of thirty or
forty cashadas, and the following morning we started after them.

On the first day we killed nothing. We were rather too large a party,
for one or two of the visiting fazendeiros came along with their dogs.
I doubt whether these men very much wished to overtake our game, for
the big peccary is a murderous foe of dogs (and is sometimes dangerous
to men). One of their number frankly refused to come or to let his
dogs come, explaining that the fierce wild swine were "very badly
brought up" (a literal translation of his words) and that respectable
dogs and men ought not to go near them. The other fazendeiros merely
feared for their dogs; a groundless fear, I believe, as I do not think
that the dogs could by any exertion have been dragged into dangerous
proximity with such foes. The ranch foreman, Benedetto, came with us,
and two or three other camaradas, including Antonio, the Parecis
Indian. The horses were swum across the river, each being led beside a
dugout. Then we crossed with the dog