The
owner was a Spaniard, the manager an "Oriental," as he called himself,
a Uruguayan, of German parentage. The peons, or workers, who lived in
a long line of wooden cabins back of the main building, were mostly
Paraguayans, with a few Brazilians, and a dozen German and Argentine
foremen. There were also some wild Indians, who were camped in the
usual squalid fashion of Indians who are hangers-on round the white
man but have not yet adopted his ways. Most of the men were at work
cutting wood for the tannery. The women and children were in camp.
Some individuals of both sexes were naked to the waist. One little
girl had a young ostrich as a pet.
Water-fowl were plentiful. We saw large flocks of wild muscovy ducks.
Our tame birds come from this wild species and its absurd misnaming
dates back to the period when the turkey and guinea-pig were misnamed
in similar fashion--our European forefathers taking a large and hazy
view of geography, and including Turkey, Guinea, India, and Muscovy as
places which, in their capacity of being outlandish, could be
comprehensively used as including America. The muscovy ducks were very
good eating. Darters and cormorants swarmed. They waddled on the sand-
bars in big flocks and crowded the trees by the water's edge.
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