The highest degree of science or intellect, as a matter of fact, was represented by the medicine-men with their simple and mistakenly practical remedy. The race had no acquaintance with either music, games, dancing, or with ordinary conversation as understood amongst more civilised beings. In matters of personal adornment the Charrúas were equally unsophisticated. A few ostrich feathers in the hair constituted the beginning and the end of the men's costume; the sole garment of the women was a loin-cloth. Of too dull a temperament to discover even the simplest pleasures that the majority of races contrive to extract from their existence, the sole luxury in which these folk indulged was the bathing in the streams of the country. But this recreation was limited to the midsummer months: during all the other periods of the year they refrained entirely from ablutions. The point as to whether these benighted Indians were cannibals has never been definitely cleared up. The charge of eating human flesh has been brought against the tribe by a certain number of authorities. It is stated, for instance, that the body of Juan Diaz de Solis, the discoverer of the River Plate and one of the first victims of these warriors, was consumed by the attacking party after his murder. But the evidence is not clear in either this case or in any other of the kind, although it is likely enough that they partook of the taste that was shared by various tribes who inhabited the country to the north. Their ordinary food, in any case, was the flesh of the deer and ostrich, as well as fish. Their meals were frequently demolished in a raw condition, doubtless of necessity, although they understood the means of producing fire by the friction of wood. Vegetable food was unknown to them, but they contrived to produce an intoxicating liquor from the fermentation of wasps' honey mixed with water.