"
The Pongo venator is up with the sun, and, if not on horseback,
at least he is on the traces of game; sometimes he returns home
during the hours of heat, when he knows that the beasts seek the
shady shelter of the deepest forests; and, after again enjoying
the "pleasures of the chase," he disposes of a heavy dinner and
ends the day, sleep weighing down his eyelids and his brains
singing with liquor. What he did yesterday that he does to-day,
and what he does to-day that he shall do to-morrow; his
intellectual life is varied only by a visit to town, where he
sells his choice skins, drinks a great deal too much rum, and
makes the purchases, ammunition and so forth, which are necessary
for the full enjoyment of home and country life. At times also he
joins a party of friends and seeks some happier hunting ground
farther from his campagne.
Meanwhile the women dawdle through the day, superintending their
domestic work, look after their children's and their own
toilette, tend the fire, attend to the cooking, and smoke
consumedly. The idle sit with the men at the doors of their huts;
those industriously disposed weave mats, and, whether lazy or
not, they never allow their tongues and lungs a moment's rest.
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