Dance of the Dwarfs by Geoffrey Household Page A

would be surprised into confessing it. I could then be sure that they had made up the whole story.
    â€œNo, Don Ojen, no! He went away when he could get no one to herd the cattle.”
    â€œWhy didn’t you go too?”
    â€œWhat should I do? I am not a llanero. We must eat, Teresa and I and the boys who were then at her skirts. And he gave me the paper saying that I might stay as long as I liked.”
    â€œBut all the time you were afraid?”
    â€œNot much. In the day, as you know, what could be more peaceful? At night one must stay indoors. Then there is no danger.”
    â€œHow do you know there isn’t?”
    â€œBecause there never has been.”
    Not a satisfying answer on the face of it. But knowledge can only be founded on experience. How do I know there isn’t a blue orange? Because there never has been.
    My summing up has to be—with a mass of reservations—in favor of pygmies. Here is a picture of them:
    1. They are hunters and food-gatherers like the most primitive of the forest Indians. They only leave the shelter of the trees after sunset or before sunrise. Sound enough. That is when the deer, peccary and small game are to be found browsing at the edge of the llano.
    2. They will come as far as the estancia in rare and exceptional years when the creek can be crossed.
    3. They won’t wade (fear of alligators or eel?) and they clearly have no canoes or their presence would have been reported on the river. This is hard to believe. They must have seen canoes and their culture cannot be so primitive that they are unable to build one.
    4. They are very timid and won’t face a wall. Won’t, I think, not can’t. Presumably they have observed this place for years and know that it is inhabited by very large men on very strange animals.
    5. Tribal dances take place at night on the llano. A forest glade seems a more natural choice; but one must not underrate the power of religious tradition. Perhaps they lived in the open some thousands of years ago.
    Having put this down on paper, I feel it adds up to beings as improbable as duendes. You pays your money and you takes your choice. But I am determined to know. To be the discoverer of Homo Dawnayensis really would be something!
    [ April 15, Friday ]
    Teresa tells me that we are shortly going to run out of coffee. That is where Pedro’s store was useful. He could always keep us going with staples if I forgot to order in time or the government canoe failed to deliver. One would expect some inquiries about him, but it is not surprising that the Intendencia shows no curiosity. I doubt if Pedro transmitted a message a month before I came here. He sent off his reports and did his ordering by the canoe.
    Perhaps it is my duty to let somebody know what has happened, since I am the only citizen for miles around who can write. But what with pygmies, fornication and fatherliness I have hardly given a thought to Pedro. I don’t know the movements of the government canoe—Pedro was the only person who could make a reasonable guess—and I refuse to spend days in Santa Eulalia waiting for the chance to send off a letter. Mañana! One of these days the Intendencia or the Mission will send somebody to see how I am getting on.
    We may have had a visit. I woke up at five to hear Tesoro neighing, and some plunging in the corral. So I went out, suspecting that my pair of beauties might have set about Pichón. They do not see why he should have carrots while they get stale bread. Answer: carrots are too precious to be used for wholesale bribery.
    I found all the horses sweating. Tesoro had stamped an agouti into the dust. Was the agouti responsible for the excitement, or was there anything else which panicked the horses? My only reason for suspecting there might be is the improbability of an agouti entering our compound at all and then taking refuge in the corral. Mario of course showed no sign of life. He hears nothing