and away over the surrounding country to gather up the herds; at midday
they were back again to breakfast. The consumption and waste of meat
was something frightful. Frequently, after breakfast, as much as twenty
or thirty pounds of boiled and roast meat would be thrown into a
wheelbarrow and carried out to the dust-heap, where it served to feed
scores of hawks, gulls, and vultures, besides the dogs.

Of course, I was only an _agregado_, having no salary or regular
occupation yet. Thinking, however, that this would only be for a time,
I was quite willing to make the best of things, and very soon became
fast friends with my fellow _agregados_, joining heartily in all
their amusements and voluntary labours.

In a few days I got very tired of living exclusively on flesh, for not
even a biscuit was "procurable at this elevation"; and as for a potato,
one might as well have asked for a plum-pudding. It occurred to my
mind at last that, with so many cows, it might be possible to procure
some milk and introduce a little change into our diet. In the evening
I broached the subject, proposing that on the following day we should
capture a cow and tame her. Some of the men approved of the suggestion,
remarking that they had never thought of it themselves; but the old
negress, who, being the only representative of the fair sex present,
was always listened to with all the deference due to her position,
threw herself with immense zeal into the opposition. She affirmed that
no cow had been milked at that establishment since its owner had paid
it a visit with his young wife twelve years before. A milch-cow was
then kept, and on the senora partaking of a large quantity of milk
"before breaking her fast," it produced such an indigestion in her
that they were obliged to give her powdered ostrich stomach, and finally
to convey her, with great trouble, in an ox-cart to Paysandu, and