s cannot come through. This tea is very good
to drink. It makes the people very strong.

[Illustration: Guanaco.]

The women do all the work about the house. They make the clothes,
carry home the wood for the fire, and bring water from the streams or
wells.

The men do nothing but hunt. They hunt the guanaco and the ostrich.
The guanaco is nearly as large as a cow, and has a head like a camel.
Its flesh is good to eat, and the people make cloaks of its skin.

[Illustration: Hunting Ostriches.]

The ostrich is the largest bird in the world. Its legs are very long,
and it has a long neck. It cannot fly, for its wings are too small,
but it can run very fast. It can run faster than a horse. It is hard
for the hunter to catch it. He rides on horseback, and catches the
ostrich with a bo'las. A bolas is a rope with a stone, a metal ball,
or a lump of hard clay fastened to each end. The hunter swings one end
of the bolas round and round his head, and then hurls it with great
force at the ostrich. It strikes the ostrich or catches it by the legs
and throws it down. Then the hunter runs up and kills the ostrich with
a knife. The hunters also hunt the ostrich with dogs. Sometimes an
ostrich will spring suddenly up from the long grass almost in front of
the hunter and his dogs. Then the dogs can easily catch it.

The ostrich makes a hole in the ground under a bush for its eggs. This
is its nest. The eggs are very large, and they are good to eat. Its
flesh is also good to eat. Of course you know ostrich feathers are
pretty for ladies' hats. The feathers for hats are taken from the tail
and from the ends of the wings. But the feathers of the ostrich in
Patagonia are not so fine and pretty as the feathers of the ostrich
found in Africa.

There is an animal in Patagonia called the puma. It is like a cat, but
it is much stronger. Often it kills and eats the guanaco.

[Illustration: Pumas.]

The boys and girls in Patagonia have very few toys, but they are merry
and happy. As the boys grow up, they soon learn to hunt; and then they
go out with their fathers to hunt the guanaco and the ostrich.

THE PYGMIES.

Perhaps you have read in fairy tales of very little people called
dwarfs. There are old stories which tell us about very small men who
lived a long time ago in Africa. They were called pygmies. They were
only one foot high, and they built their houses with eggshells. They
lived in holes in