But before reaching the
estancia our traveler has had the good fortune to shoot three large
birds of the pheasant variety called _mutus_, and thus the humble
board of Don Matias is graced with meat, a rare commodity in those
parts.
After a short siesta--as much an institution in Paraguay as dinner
itself--M. Forgues pushes forward, furnished with a youthful guide
mounted on a mule whom Don Matias has bidden accompany him. For six
hours the route lies through a virgin forest composed of orange, cedar
and other trees, mingled with dense thorny thickets, trunks of decayed
trees and a twisted network of climbers. The passage through this
forest is attended with many vexatious incidents, owing to the
difficulty experienced in making a way through the undergrowth and
thickly-growing climbers. After having his spectacles, his maps, his
gun and his hat jerked from him, M. Forgues himself is pulled from his
horse. The horses are attacked by a multitude of small yellow flies,
which sting them unmercifully in the nostrils, the ears and in
whatever part of their bodies the animals cannot reach with their
tails, so that, maddened with pain, they break into a fierce gallop to
avoid the pest, carrying their riders in their course along the edge
of a hole in the ground in which swarms about a bushel of small snakes
of a bright green color.
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