The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1876-03-22
"A JAGUAR STORY.

"Ah !~Senor Inglez, see you're de
termined to defy our climate! Aftel
the march that my husband led yor
through the woods this morning, one
would have thought you'd have beer
glad ;of a 'siesta; aud here I find you writ
ing away like any lawyer"
So speaks, gliding ont with the sup
pleness of Spanish blood into the veran
daii in which I am seated, my charming
hostess, Sonora Diaz, one of the most
piquant little tropical beauties that Mu
rillo ever dreamed of.
Well, really, sonora, after all the
wonders I've seen in this fairyland Of
yours, / had need write them down as
fast as I see them, lest; as your proverb
says, one nail should drive out an
other"
"Your flatter our poor country, senor,
with the courtesy of your nation. But
as I see that you are putting by your
writing, will task your gallautry so far
as to beg your help in watering my
flowers, for it is not easy for me, with
my lame hand, to manage that great
watering pot!' e.. -
!" Be pleased to use my. hands as those
OF your slave sonora, when and wher-
ever you may need them. By-the-bye,
am 1 wrong in imagining that you prom
ised me a story connected with the
tanning of the hand OF which you speak 2
[ would not willingly be troublesome,
but when you have leisure
"With pleasure, senior it is very
kind of you to interest yourself in sucL
trife. AS soon as the plants are
watered, I shall have the honor of serv
ing you cup of coffee on the balcony !;
and, then, if you arc good enough to
care to hear it, the story is quite at
your service"
And accordingly, ten minutes later, 1
find myself sitting in the verandah over
cup Of such coffee as I have not tasted
since leaving Arabia, with little Lolita
Dolores), my hostess only daughter,
and my especial pet, nesting at my
side; while the sonora, deftly rolling up
and lighting a paper cigarette, begins as
follows: , ,t !. r.
When we first came here, senior, a
good many years ago, the place was very
different from what you see it. My hus,
band had grant of land from the gov
ernment, which was glad to give away
ground about here to any one who
would take the trouble to clear it; and
we'll it might For in those days the
iunglereached right down to the waters
edge; and such o black, horrid tangle it
looked of briars, bamboos, Spanish
hayonet. wild fig, Llama, pirijao, locust
wood, and what not, that I felt as if I
daren't even goa step into it for fear of
being lost altogether. :. -.
However, hit by bit, we began to get
the ground into some sort of order; but
even when we had cleared it, and begun
to plant it, we had still plenty of ene-
aies to fight against. The ants were
the worst for, apart from the havoc
which they always make in a plantation,
they have way Of running their gal
4eries under the whole surface, and it
breaks in just like the crust of u pie.
There's place little to the north Of
this, where you see a huge pit in tie
ground, full Of bushes and wild grass,
with here and there q, few moldering
timbcrs, where whole village sunk at
once, the foundations having been fairly
honeycombed by the ants And thence
comes our saying that Paraguay has two
enemies-"the wild Indians and the
ant Indiaus."
However, luckily for us, there were no
Indians about there, except the tame In
dams, who behaved we'll enough, and
used to bring us food and died meat i'll
exchange for. knives and aquardiente.
And as for the ents, what with poisoning
them, and digging up their nests, and
flooding their galleries with boiling
water, we managed to get the best of
them at last, though even now they
sometimes make q foray upon US from
the woods around. But after them came
another pest that was far worse-the
snakes. T need hardly tell you, who
have been through the forests yourself,
how they swarm there; and for time 1
really gave myself up for lost. Ny hus-
band used to call them "the tax-gath-
erers, and, really, they were quite as
regular, not day that we didn't find
one or two of them somewhere about
the house. And once what a fright 1
got When Lolita was only a few
months old, my husband and his men
had gone out to their work one morning
as usual, and I was busy in the house,
with the child lying asleep on mat at
the other end of the,room, when, all at
once, I caught sight of mouse's skin
on the floor, with the body sucked clean
out of it, like an orange. / knew at
once that there must be snake some
where about, for they're might fond of
mice, and that's just the way they deal
with them; but, look as I might, 1 could
see no snake anywhere, till suddenly the
thought struck me, could it be under
the child's mGt2 AS gently as [ could,
I lifted up one corner, and there it was,
the long, Shiny, green -and-yellow beast,
curled snugly up, and fast asleep. l
knew that l could do nothing with it
myself, for it was a sort that you can
only kill by shooting them; SO / ran out
into the courtyard, and, luckily, the
first thing I saw was our hunter Jose,
with his gun on his shoulder. called
him in at once, and he settled the beast
with charge of small shot.
However, as the work went on, and
we got more and more ground cleared,
our visitors b"gan to forsake US; for
snakes must have thick cover to bur-
row in, and, when that's taken away from
them, they soon stink of. So then I
began to hope that we were fairly at the
end of our troubles; but we weren't
we were only at the beginning of them.
i don't know how it was--perhaps it
may have been that Gas the proverb says)
everything must have its turn-but
somehow, all through our troubles with
the ants, and serpsnts, the bigger beasts