The night was calm; nothing disturbed its peaceful and majestic tranquillity. The guardsmen kept watch with a conscientious alertness over the repose of their kinsmen, which is not very often the case among the Indians.
At about half past four in the morning, the darkness gradually began to give way to the still faint glow of the first daylight; the sky painted itself with broad strokes of changing colours, which at last blended into a brilliant red, and the sun appeared rising above the horizon as if it had come from a furnace, suddenly illuminating the heavens with its resplendent rays, which resembled flakes of fire.
In the desert the first hours of the morning are the sweetest and the most splendid of the day.
Nature, on awaking calm and refreshed, appears during the darkness to have resumed all her powers. The freshened foliage is pearled with dew; a light and transparent mist rises from the ground, and is speedily absorbed by the sun; a fresh breeze ripples the silvery surface of the rivers and the lakes, agitates the branches of the trees, and sends a quivering through the tall grass, from the midst of which rise every now and then the heads of affrightened oxen, wild horses, deer, or gazelles; while the birds, joyously clapping their wings, make their morning toilet, or fly about with cries and twitterings of pleasure.
The Indians are not generally heavy sleepers; so the sun had scarcely appeared above the horizon than they all awoke and proceeded to dress, washing themselves every day; for the Guaycurus, contrary to other American tribes, number among their characteristics that of strict cleanliness, and even have a kind of coquetry in the arrangement of their picturesque clothing.
At the voice of Cougar, they united in a semicircle, their eyes turned towards the rising sun, and addressed a fervent prayer to the radiant orb of day—not that they look upon it as positively a god, but because it is, according to their belief, the visible representative of the invisible Divinity, and the great dispenser of benefits.
We have remarked with astonishment this worship rendered to the sun in all the countries of America, as well in the south as in the north, and which, although varied in form, is everywhere in substance the same in all the indigenous tribes. Moreover, this natural religion must be more easily understood by primitive races, who thus render homage to what the more forcibly strikes their eyes than their senses.
This pious duty accomplished, the warriors arose, and immediately shared the labours of the camp.
Some led the horses to water; others rubbed them down carefully; some went to cut wood, in order to rekindle the smouldering fires, whilst some five or six chosen warriors, leaping on their barebacked horses, started off into the savannah, to procure by hunting the necessary provisions for their breakfast, and that of their companions.