The gaucho’s conjecture is correct, as they soon discover. Before they have ridden three score lengths of their horses, keeping close along the base of the hill, they perceive an opening in the timber which skirts it, marked by certain insignia denoting the entrance to a much-frequented path. For though narrow, it shows well trampled and trodden. Diverging abruptly from the broad road running on round the hill, it strikes in under a tall cotton tree, a ceiba, this conspicuous from being bent over, as if half-blown down. The path enters between its trunk and a gigantic pita plant (agave), whose stiff spinous leaves almost bar up the entrance as with an iron gate.
“That’s the way we’ve got to go,” says Gaspar, pointing to it, at the same time setting his horse’s head in the direction of the ceiba; then adding, as he nods towards the pita plant; “have a care of your heads, hijos mios! Look out for this queer customer on the left, or you may get your soft cheeks scratched a bit.”
On delivering the admonition he ducks his own head, and passing under the thorny leaves of the agave, commences the ascent of the hill.
Cypriano and Ludwig do likewise; and all three are soon climbing the steep, one behind the other, now in silence, the only sounds heard being the hoof-strokes of the horses, with their hard breathing as they strain up the acclivity.
A quarter of an hour’s tough climbing carries them up the wooded slope, and out upon the open summit, where they have a spectacle before their eyes peculiar, as it is original. As already said, the hill is table-topped, and being also dome-shaped the level surface is circular, having a diameter of some three or four hundred yards. Nothing strange in this, however, since hills of the kind, termed mesas, are common throughout most parts of Spanish America, and not rare in the Gran Chaco. All three are familiar with such eminences. But what they are not familiar with—and indeed none of them have ever seen before—are some scores of queer-looking structures standing all over the summit, with alley-like spaces between! Scaffolds they appear, each having two stages, one above the other, such as might be used in the erection of a two-storey house!
And scaffolds they are, though not employed in any building purposes; instead, for that of burial. They are the tombs on which are deposited the bodies of the Tovas dead; or those of them that during life were dignitaries in the tribe.
On this elevated cemetery the moon is shining brightly, though obliquely, throwing the shadows of the scaffolds aslant, so that each has its counterpart on the smooth turf by its side, dark as itself, but magnified in the moonlight. Gaspar and his companions can see that these singular mausoleums are altogether constructed of timber, the supporting posts being trunks of the Cocoyol palm, the lower staging of strong canes, the caña brava, laid side by side, while the upper one, or roof, is a thatch of the leaves of another species of palm—the cuberta.
After contemplating them for an instant, Gaspar says: “This is the burying-ground Naraguana spoke to me about, beyond a doubt. And not such a bad sort of place either to take one’s final rest in, after life’s worries are over. I shouldn’t much object to being laid out in that style myself. Only I’d need friends to live after me, and keep the structure in repair; otherwise the frail thing might some day come tumbling down, and my poor bones along with it.”
At the conclusion of this quaint speech, he gives the rein to his horse, and moves on among the tombs, making for the opposite side of the cemetery, the others following in silence. For from the brow of the hill on its westward side, they expect to look down upon the Indian town.
“It must be on t’other side,” observes the gaucho, as they proceed. “I remember the old chief saying the tolderia was west of the hill.”