On the morning of January 9th we started out for a tapir-hunt. Tapirs
are hunted with canoes, as they dwell in thick jungle and take to the
water when hounds follow them. In this region there were extensive
papyrus-swamps and big lagoons, back from the river, and often the
tapirs fled to these for refuge, throwing off the hounds. In these
places it was exceedingly difficult to get them; our best chance was
to keep to the river in canoes, and paddle toward the spot in the
direction of which the hounds, by the noise, seemed to be heading. We
started in four canoes. Three of them were Indian dugouts, very low in
the water. The fourth was our Canadian canoe, a beauty; light, safe,
roomy, made of thin slats of wood and cement-covered canvas. Colonel
Rondon, Fiala with his camera, and I went in this canoe, together with
two paddlers. The paddlers were natives of the poorer class. They were
good men. The bowsman was of nearly pure white blood; the steersman
was of nearly pure negro blood, and was evidently the stronger
character and better man of the two. The other canoes carried a couple
of fazendeiros, ranchmen, who had come up from Caceres with their
dogs. These dugouts were manned by Indian and half-caste paddlers, and
the fazendeiros, who were of nearly pure white blood, also at times
paddled vigorously. All were dressed in substantially similar clothes,
the difference being that those of the camaradas, the poorer men or
laborers, were in tatters. In the canoes no man wore anything save a
shirt, trousers, and hat, the feet being bare. On horseback they wore
long leather leggings which were really simply high, rather flexible
boots with the soles off; their spurs were on their tough bare feet.
There was every gradation between and among the nearly pure whites,
negroes, and Indians. On the whole, there was the most white blood in the
upper ranks, and most Indian and negro blood among the camaradas; but
there were exceptions in both classes, and there was no discrimination