Through the Brazilian wilderness

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THROUGH THE
BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS

Colonel Roosevelt and Colonel Rondon at Navaite on the River of Doubt.

From a photograph by Cherrie.

THROUGH THE
BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS

BY
THEODORE ROOSEVELT

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1919 |

Ww f

A495532

CopryYricuatT, 1914, By
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

All rights reserved, including that of translation into
foreign languages, including the Scandinavian

Published October, 1914
Reprinted March, 1919
Uniform Edition September, 1919

THE SCRIBNER PRESS

TO

H. E. LAURO MULLER

SECRETARY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS FOR BRAZIL, AND TO HIS
GOVERNMENTAL COLLEAGUES

AND TO
COLONEL RONDON

GALLANT OFFICER, HIGH-MINDED GENTLEMAN, AND INTREPID EXPLORER

AND TO HIS ASSISTANTS

CAPTAIN AMILCAR, LIEUTENANT LYRA, LIEUTENANT MELLO,
LIEUTENANT LAURIADO, AND DOCTOR CAJAZEIRA, OF
THE BRAZILIAN ARMY, AND EUSEBIO OLIVEIRA

OUR COMPANIONS IN SCIENTIFIC WORK AND IN THE EXPLORATION
OF THE WILDERNESS

THIS BOOK

18 INSCRIBED, WITH ESTEEM, REGARD, AND AFFECTION
BY THEIR FRIEND

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

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Rio Grande do Sul

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Col. Roosevelt's trip is shown with an unbroken
Une (hUS\m_memmm SAVE on the Unknown River
which is shown by broken line thus,.--_- —wec3am
Fiala’s trip duwn the Papagaio (never before de-

450

seended) and the Tapajos is shown thus, RX
Miller's trip down the Gy-Parana and the

Madeira is shuwn thus,
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90° Long: 70°

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60° from

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Map showing the entire South American journey of Colonel Roosevelt and members of the expedition

PREFACE

r A HIS is an account of a zoogeographic reconnois-
sance through the Brazilian hinterland.

The official and proper title of the expedi-
tion is that given it by the Brazilian Government: Ex-
pedicao Scientifica Roosevelt-Rondon. When I started
from the United States, it was to make an expedition,
primarily concerned with mammalogy and ornithology,
for the American Museum of Natural History of New
York. This was undertaken under the auspices of
Messrs. Osborn and Chapman, acting on behalf of the
Museum. In the body of this work I describe how the
scope of the expedition was enlarged, and how it was
given a geographic as well as a zoological character, in
consequence of the kind proposal of the Brazilian Secre-
tary of State for Foreign Affairs, General Lauro Miller.
In its altered and enlarged form the expedition was ren-
dered possible only by the generous assistance of the
Brazilian Government. Throughout the body of the
work will be found reference after reference to my
colleagues and companions of the expedition, whose
services to science I have endeavored to set forth, and
for whom I shall always feel the most cordial friendship
and regard.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
SAGAMorRE Hirt,
September 1, 1914.

CONTENTS

THE START

Up THE PARAGUAY

A Jacuar-Hunt ON THE TAQUARY
THE HEADWATERS OF THE PARAGUAY
Up THE RIVER OF TAPIRS

THROUGH THE HIGHLAND WILDERNESS OF
WESTERN BrazIL

With A Mote-Tratin Across NHAMBI-
QUARA LAND

THE RIVER OF DousBT .

Down AN UNKNOWN RIVER INTO THE
EQUATORIAL FOREST

To THE Amazon AND Home; ZOOLOGICAL
AND GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS OF THE
EXPEDITION .

APPENDICES—

A. Tse Work oF THE FIELD Zo-
OLOGIST AND FIELD GEOGRAPHER
In SoutH AMERICA

B. Tue Ovtrit FoR TRAVELLING IN
THE SoutH AMERICAN WILDERNESS

C. My Letrer or May 1 To GEN-
ERAL Lauro MULLER

INDEX

290

330

353

368

393
397

ILLUSTRATIONS

Colonel Roosevelt and Colonel Rondon at Navaite,

on the River of Doubt . . . . . . Frontispiece

The brown boy on the long-horned trotting steer,
which he managed ad a ai ee its nostril
and lip . s. 8 —

Colonel Roosevelt and the first jaguar

Colonel Roosevelt and Colonel Rondon with bush
deer . Be GRY Pe cee el eS

The Falls of Utianity

At the Juruena we met a party of Nhambiquaras,
very friendly and sociable, and very glad to see
Colonel Rondon Br Ween’ Wo tee be 4

Colonel Roosevelt’s and Colonel Rondon’s canoes
at the mouth of the Bandeira

Dragging the canoes over a eas 4 means of
ropes and logs . 4% s 4

The camaradas gathered around the monument
erected by Colonel Rondon .

MAPS

Map showing the entire South American journey of
Colonel Roosevelt and members of the expedi-
tion... - 1. . . . facing page

Map of the River of Doubt (Dirida), christened Rio
Roosevelt and subsequently Rio Téodoro by di-
rection of the Brazilian Government facing page

FACING
PAGE

82
82

142

202

222

254

268

342

vii

348

Map of the Roosevelt-Rondon expedition at end of volume

THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN
WILDERNESS

CHAPTER I

THE START

= day in 1908, when my presidential term was

coming to a close, Father Zahm, a priest whom

I knew, came in to call on me. Father Zahm
and I had been cronies for some time, because we were
both of us fond of Dante and of history and of science
—TI had always commended to theologians his book,
“Evolution and Dogma.” He was an Ohio boy, and his
early schooling had been obtained in old-time American
fashion in a little log school; where, by the way, one of
the other boys was Januarius Aloysius MacGahan, after-
ward the famous war correspondent and friend of Sko-
beloff. Father Zahm told me that MacGahan even at
that time added an utter fearlessness to chivalric tender-
ness for the weak, and was the defender of any small
hoy who was oppressed by a larger one. Later Father
Zahm was at Notre Dame University, in Indiana, with
Maurice Egan, whom, when I was President, I appointed
minister to Denmark.

On the occasion in question Father Zahm had just
returned from a trip across the Andes and down the
Amazon, and came in to propose that after I left the

1

2 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

presidency he and I should go up the Paraguay into the
interior of South America. At the time I wished to go
to Africa, and so the subject was dropped; but from
time to time afterward we talked it over. Five years
later, in the spring of 1913, I accepted invitations con-
veyed through the governments of Argentina and Brazil
to address certain learned bodies in these countries.
Then it occurred to me that, instead of making the con-
ventional tourist trip purely by sea round South Amer-
ica, after I had finished my lectures I would come north
through the middle of the continent into the valley of
the Amazon; and I decided to write Father Zahm and
tell him my intentions. Before doing so, however, I
desired to see the authorities of the American Museum
of Natural History, in New York City, to find out
whether they cared to have me take a couple of natural-
ists with me into Brazil and make a collecting trip for
the museum.

Accordingly, I wrote to Frank Chapman, the curator
of ornithology of the museum, and accepted his invita-
tion to lunch at the museum one day early in June. At
the lunch, in addition to various naturalists, to my aston-
ishment I also found Father Zahm; and as soon as I
saw him I told him I was now intending to make the
South American trip. It appeared that he had made up
his mind that he would take it himself, and had actually
come on to see Mr. Chapman to find out if the latter
could recommend a naturalist to go with him; and he
at once said he would accompany me. Chapman was
pleased when he found out that we intended to go up the
Paraguay and across into the valley of the Amazon, be-

The Start 3

cause much of the ground over which we were to pass
had not been covered by collectors. He saw Henry Fair-
field Osborn, the president of the museum, who wrote
me that the museum would be pleased to send under me
a couple of naturalists, whom, with my approval, Chap-
man would choose.

The men whom Chapman recommended were Messrs.
George K. Cherrie and Leo E. Miller. I gladly accepted
both. The former was to attend chiefly to the ornithol-
ogy and the latter to the mammalogy of the expedition;
but each was to help out the other. No two better men
for such a trip could have been found. Both were vet-
erans of the tropical American forests. Miller was a
young man, born in Indiana, an enthusiastic naturalist
with good literary as well as scientific training. He was
at the time in the Guiana forests, and joined us at Bar-
bados. Cherrie was an older man, born in Iowa, but
now a farmer in Vermont. He had a wife and six chil-
dren. Mrs. Cherrie had accompanied him during two
or three years of their early married life in his collecting
trips along the Orinoco. Their second child was born
when they were in camp a couple of hundred miles from
any white man or woman. One night a few weeks later
they were obliged to leave a camping-place, where they
had intended to spend the night, because the baby was
fretful, and its cries attracted a jaguar, which prowled
nearer and nearer in the twilight until they thought it
safest once more to put out into the open river and seek
a new resting-place. Cherrie had spent about twenty-
two years collecting in the American tropics. Like most
of the field-naturalists I have met, he was an unusually

4 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

efficient and fearless man; and willy-nilly he had been
forced at times to vary his career by taking part in in-
surrections. Twice he had been behind the bars in con-
sequence, on one occasion spending three months in a
prison of a certain South American state, expecting each
day to be taken out and shot. In another state he had,
as an interlude to his ornithological pursuits, followed
the career of a gun-runner, acting as such off and on
for two and a half years. The particular revolutionary
chief whose fortunes he was following finally came into
power, and Cherrie immortalized his name by naming a
new species of ant-thrush after him—a delightful touch,
in its practical combination of those not normally kin-
dred pursuits, ornithology and gun-running.

In Anthony Fiala, a former arctic explorer, we found
an excellent man for assembling equipment and taking
charge of its handling and shipment. In addition to his
feur years in the arctic regions, Fiala had served in the
New York Squadron in Porto Rico during the Spanish
War, and through his service in the squadron had been
brought into contact with his little Tennessee wife. She
came down with her four children to say good-by to him
when the steamer left. My secretary, Mr. Frank Harper,
went with us. Jacob Sigg, who had served three years
in the United States Army, and was both a hospital nurse
and a cook, as well as having a natural taste for adven-
ture, went as the personal attendant of Father Zahm. In
southern Brazil my son Kermit joined me. He had been
bridge building, and a couple of months previously, while
on top of a long steel span, something went wrong with
the derrick, he and the steel span coming down together

The Start 5

on the rocky bed beneath. He escaped with two broken
ribs, two teeth knocked out, and a knee partially dislo-
cated, but was practically all right again when he started
with us.

In its composition ours was a typical American ex-
pedition. Kermit and I were of the old Revolutionary
stock, and in our veins ran about every strain of blood
that there was on this side of the water during colonial
times. Cherrie’s father was born in Ireland, and his
mother in Scotland; they came here when very young,
and his father served throughout the Civil War in an
Iowa cavalry regiment. His wife was of old Revolu-
tionary stock. Father Zahm’s father was an Alsacian
immigrant, and his mother was partly of Irish and partly
of old American stock, a descendant of a niece of Gen-
eral Braddock. Miller’s father came from Germany,
and his mother from France. Fiala’s father and mother
were both from Bohemia, being Czechs, and his father
had served four years in the Civil War in the Union
Army—his Tennessee wife was of old Revolutionary
stock. Harper was born in England, and Sigg in Swit-
zerland. We were as varied in religious creed as in
ethnic origin. Father Zahm and Miller were Catholics,
Kermit and Harper Episcopalians, Cherrie a Presby-
terian, Fiala a Baptist, Sigg a Lutheran, while I belonged
to the Dutch Reformed Church.

For arms the naturalists took 16-bore shotguns, one
of Cherrie’s having a rifle barrel underneath. The fire-
arms for the rest of the party were supplied by Kermit
and myself, including my Springfield rifle, Kermit’s two
Winchesters, a 405 and 30-40, the Fox 12-gauge shot-

6 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

gun, and another 16-gauge gun, and a couple of re-
volvers, a Colt and a Smith & Wesson. We took from
New York a couple of canvas canoes, tents, mosquito-
bars, plenty of cheesecloth, including nets for the hats,
and both light cots and hammocks, We took ropes and.
pulleys which proved invaluable on our canoe trip. Each
equipped himself with the clothing he fancied. Mine
consisted of khaki, such as I wore in Africa, with a
couple of United States Army flannel shirts and a couple
of silk shirts, one pair of hob-nailed shoes with leggings,
and one pair of laced leather boots coming nearly to the
knee. Both the naturalists told me that it was well to
have either the boots or leggings as a protection against
snake-bites, and I also had gauntlets because of the mos-
quitoes and sand-flies. We intended where possible to
live on what we could get from time to time in the coun-
try, but we took some United States Army emergency
rations, and also ninety cans, each containing a day’s
provisions for five men, made up by Fiala.

The trip I proposed to take can be understood only
if there is a slight knowledge of South American topog-
raphy. The great mountain chain of the Andes extends
down the entire length of the western coast, so close to
the Pacific Ocean that no rivers of any importance enter
it. The rivers of South America drain into the Atlantic.
Southernmost South America, including over half of
the territory of the Argentine Republic, consists chiefly
of a cool, open plains country. Northward of this coun-
try, and eastward of the Andes, lies the great bulk of
the South American continent, which is included in the
tropical and the subtropical regions. Most of this terri-

The Start 7

tory is Brazilian. Aside from certain relatively small
stretches drained by coast rivers, this immense region of
tropical and subtropical America east of the Andes is
drained by the three great river systems of the Plate,
the Amazon, and the Orinoco. At their headwaters the
Amazon and the Orinoco systems are actually connected
by a sluggish natural canal. The headwaters of the
northern affluents of the Paraguay and the southern
affluents of the Amazon are sundered by a stretch of
high land, which toward the east broadens out into the
central plateau of Brazil. Geologically this is a very
ancient region, having appeared above the waters before
the dawning of the age of reptiles, or, indeed, of any
true land vertebrates on the globe. This plateau is a
region partly of healthy, rather dry and sandy, open
prairie, partly of forest. The great and low-lying basin
of the Paraguay, which borders it on the south, is one
of the largest, and the still greater basin of the Amazon,
which borders it on the north, is the very largest of all
the river basins of the earth.

In these basins, but especially in the basin of the
Amazon, and thence in most places northward to the
Caribbean Sea, lie the most extensive stretches of tropi-
cal forest to be found anywhere. The forests of tropical
West Africa, and of portions of the Farther-Indian re-
gion, are the only ones that can be compared with them.
Much difficulty has been experienced in exploring these
forests, because under the torrential rains and steaming
heat the rank growth of vegetation becomes almost im-
penetrable, and the streams difficult of navigation; while
white men suffer much from the terrible insect scourges

8 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

and the deadly diseases which modern science has dis-
covered to be due very largely to insect bites. The
fauna and flora, however, are of great interest. The
American museum was particularly anxious to obtain
collections from the divide between the headwaters of
the Paraguay and the Amazon, and from the southern
affluents of the Amazon. Our purpose was to ascend
the Paraguay as nearly as possible to the head of naviga-
tion, thence cross to the sources of one of the affluents of
the Amazon, and if possible descend it in canoes built on
the spot. The Paraguay is regularly navigated as high
as boats can go. The starting-point for our trip was to
be Asuncion, in the state of Paraguay.

My exact plan of operations was necessarily a little
indefinite, but on reaching Rio de Janeiro the minister
of foreign affairs, Mr. Lauro Miller, who had been kind
enough to take great personal interest in my trip, in-
formed me that he had arranged that on the headwaters
of the Paraguay, at the town of Caceres, I would be met
by a Brazilian Army colonel, himself chiefly Indian by
blood, Colonel Rondon. Colonel Rondon has been for
a quarter of a century the foremost explorer of the Bra-
zilian hinterland. He was at the time in Manaos, but
his lieutenants were in Caceres and had been notified
that we were coming.

More important still, Mr. Lauro Miiller—who is not
only an efficient public servant but a man of wide culti-
vation, with a quality about him that reminded me of
John Hay—offered to help me make my trip of much
more consequence than I had originally intended. He
has taken a keen interest in the exploration and develop-

The Start 9

ment of the interior of Brazil, and he believed that my
expedition could be used as a means toward spreading
abroad a more general knowledge of the country. He
told me that he would co-operate with me in every
way if I cared to undertake the leadership of a serious
expedition into the unexplored portion of western Matto
Grosso, and to attempt the descent of a river which
flowed nobody knew whither, but which the best-in-
formed men believed would prove to be a very big river,
utterly unknown to geographers. I eagerly and gladly
accepted, for I felt that with such help the trip could be
made of much scientific value, and that a substantial ad-
dition could be made to the geographical knowledge of
one of the least-known parts of South America. Ac-
cordingly, it was arranged that Colonel Rondon and
some assistants and scientists should meet me at or be-
low Corumba, and that we should attempt the descent
of the river, of which they had already come across the
headwaters.

I had to travel through Brazil, Uruguay, the Argen-
tine, and Chile for six weeks to fulfil my speaking en-
gagements. Fiala, Cherrie, Miller, and Sigg left me at
Rio, continuing to Buenos Aires in the boat in which
we had all come down from New York. From Buenos
Aires they went up the Paraguay to Corumba, where
they awaited me. The two naturalists went first, to do
all the collecting that was possible; Fiala and Sigg trav-
elled more leisurely, with the heavy baggage.

Before I followed them I witnessed an incident
worthy of note from the standpoint of a naturalist, and

10 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

of possible importance to us because of the trip we were
about to take. South America, even more than Australia
and Africa, and almost as much as India, is a country
of poisonous snakes. As in India, although not to the
same degree, these snakes are responsible for a very
serious mortality among human beings. One of the most
interesting evidences of the modern advance in Brazil is
the establishment near Sao Paulo of an institution espe-
cially for the study of these poisonous snakes, so as to
secure antidotes to the poison and to develop enemies
to the snakes themselves. We wished to take into the
interior with us some bottles of the anti-venom serum,
for on such an expedition there is always a certain danger
from snakes. On one of his trips Cherrie had lost a
native follower by snake-bite. The man was bitten while
out alone in the forest, and, although he reached camp,
the poison was already working in him, so that he could
give no intelligible account of what had occurred, and
he died in a short time.

Poisonous snakes are of several different families,
but the most poisonous ones, those which are dangerous
to man, belong to the two great families of the colubrine
snakes and the vipers. Most of the colubrine snakes are
entirely harmless, and are the common snakes that we
meet everywhere. But some of them, the cobras for in-
stance, develop into what are on the whole perhaps the
most formidable of all snakes. The only poisonous
colubrine snakes in the New World are the ring-snakes,
the coral-snakes of the genus elaps, which are found
from the extreme southern United States southward to
the Argentine. These coral-snakes are not vicious and

The Start II

have small teeth which cannot penetrate even ordinary
clothing. They are only dangerous if actually trodden
on by some one with bare feet or if seized in the hand.
There are harmless snakes very like them in color which
are sometimes kept as pets; but it behooves every man
who keeps such a pet or who handles such a snake to be
very sure as to the genus to which it belongs.

The great bulk of the poisonous snakes of America,
including all the really dangerous ones, belong to a divi-
sion of the widely spread family of vipers which is
known as the pit-vipers. In South America these in-
clude two distinct subfamilies or genera—whether they
are called families, subfamilies, or genera would depend,
I suppose, largely upon the varying personal views of
the individual describer on the subject of herpetological
nomenclature. One genus includes the rattlesnakes, of
which the big Brazilian species is as dangerous as those
of the southern United States. But the large majority
of the species and individuals of dangerous snakes in
tropical America are included in the genus lachecis.
These are active, vicious, aggressive snakes without rat-
tles. They are exceedingly poisonous. Some of them
grow to a very large size, being indeed among the largest
poisonous snakes in the world—their only rivals in this
respect being the diamond rattlesnake of Florida, one
of the African mambas, and the Indian hamadryad, or
snake-eating cobra. The fer-de-lance, so dreaded in
Martinique, and the equally dangerous bushmaster of
Guiana are included in this genus. A dozen species are
known in Brazil, the biggest one being identical with
the Guiana bushmaster, and the most common one, the

12 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

jararaca, being identical or practically identical with the
fer-de-lance. The snakes of this genus, like the rattle-
snakes and the Old World vipers and puff-adders, possess
long poison-fangs which strike through clothes or any
other human garment except stout leather. Moreover,
they are very aggressive, more so than any other snakes
in the world, except possibly some of the cobras. As, in
addition, they are numerous, they are a source of really
frightful danger to scantily clad men who work in the
fields and forests, or who for any reason are abroad at
night.

The poison of venomous serpents is not in the least
uniform in its quality. On the contrary, the natural
forces—to use a term which is vague, but which is as
exact as our present-day knowledge permits—that have
developed in so many different families of snakes these
poisoned fangs have worked in two or three totally dif-
ferent fashions. Unlike the vipers, the colubrine poison-
ous snakes have small fangs, and their poison, though
on the whole even more deadly, has entirely different
effects, and owes its deadliness to entirely different quali-
ties. Even within the same family there are wide differ-
ences. In the jararaca an extraordinary quantity of
yellow venom is spurted from the long poison-fangs.
This poison is secreted in large glands which, among
vipers, give the head its peculiar ace-of-spades shape.
The rattlesnake yields a much smaller quantity of white
venom, but, quantity for quantity, this white venom is
more deadly. It is the great quantity of venom injected
by the long fangs of the jararaca, the bushmaster, and
their fellows that renders their bite so generally fatal.

The Start 13

Moreover, even between these two allied genera of pit-
vipers, the differences in the action of the poison are
sufficiently marked to be easily recognizable, and to ren-
der the most effective anti-venomous serum for each
slightly different from the other. However, they are
near enough alike to make this difference, in practice,
of comparatively small consequence. In practice the
same serum can be used to neutralize the effect of either,
and, as will be seen later on, the snake that is immune
to one kind of venom is also immune to the other.

But the effect of the venom of the poisonous’ colu-
brine snakes is totally different from, although to the
full as deadly as, the effect of the poison of the rattle-
snake or jararaca. The serum that is an antidote as
regards the pit-viper is wholly or well-nigh useless as
regards the colubrines. The animal that is immune to
the bite of one may not be immune to the bite of the
other. The bite of a cobra or other colubrine poisonous
snake is more painful in its immediate effects than is
the bite of one of the big vipers. The victim suffers
more. There is a greater effect on the nerve-centres,
but less swelling of the wound itself, and, whereas the
blood of the rattlesnake’s victim coagulates, the blood
of the victim of an elapine snake—that is, of one of the
only poisonous American colubrines— becomes watery
and incapable of coagulation.

Snakes are highly specialized in every way, including
their prey. Some live exclusively on: warm-blooded. ani-
mals, on mammals, or birds. Some live exclusively on
batrachians, others only on lizards, a few only on insects.
A very few species live exclusively on other snakes.

14 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

These include one very formidable venomous snake, the
Indian hamadryad, or giant cobra, and several non-
poisonous snakes. In Africa I killed a small cobra which
contained within it a snake but a few inches shorter than
itself; but, as far as I could find out, snakes were not
the habitual diet of the African cobras.

The poisonous snakes use their venom to kill their
victims, and also to kill any possible foe which they
think menaces them. Some of them are good-tempered,
and only fight if injured or seriously alarmed. Others
are excessively irritable, and on rare occasions will even
attack of their own accord when entirely unprovoked
and unthreatened.

On reaching Sao Paulo on our southward journey
from Rio to Montevideo, we drove out to the “Instituto
Serumthérapico,” designed for the study of the effects
of the venom of poisonous Brazilian snakes. Its direc-
tor is Doctor Vital Brazil, who has performed a most
extraordinary work and whose experiments and inves-
tigations are not only of the utmost value to Brazil but
will ultimately be recognized as of the utmost value for
humanity at large. I know of no institution of similar
kind anywhere. It has a fine modern building, with all
the best appliances, in which experiments are carried on
with all kinds of serpents, living and dead, with the ob-
ject of discovering all the properties of their several
kinds of venom, and of developing various anti-venom
serums which nullify the effects of the different venoms.
Every effort is made to teach the people at large by
practical demonstration in the open field the lessons thus
learned in the laboratory. One notable result has been

The Start 15

the diminution in the mortality from snake-bites in the
province of Sao Paulo.

In connection with his institute, and right by the
laboratory, the doctor has a large serpentarium, in which
quantities of the common poisonous and non-poisonous
snakes are kept, and some of the rarer ones. He has
devoted considerable time to the effort to find out if
there are any natural enemies of the poisonous snakes of
his country, and he has discovered that the most for-
midable enemy of the many dangerous Brazilian snakes
is a non-poisonous, entirely harmless, rather uncommon
Brazilian snake, the mussurama. Of all the interesting
things the doctor showed us, by far the most interesting
was the opportunity of witnessing for ourselves the ac-
tion of the mussurama toward a dangerous snake.

The doctor first showed us specimens of the various
important snakes, poisonous and non-poisonous, in alco-
hol. Then he showed us preparations of the different
kinds of venom and of the different anti-venom serums,
presenting us with some of the latter for our use on the
journey. He has been able to produce two distinct kinds
of anti-venom serum, one to neutralize the virulent poi-
son of the rattlesnake’s bite, the other to neutralize the
poison of the different snakes of the lachecis genus.
These poisons are somewhat different and moreover
there appear to be some differences between the poisons
of the different species of lachecis; in some cases the
poison is nearly colorless, and in others, as in that of
the jararaca, whose poison I saw, it is yellow.

But the vital difference is that between all these poi-
sons of the pit-vipers and the poisons of the colubrine

16 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

snakes, such as the cobra and the coral-snake. As yet
the doctor has not been able to develop an anti-venom
serum which will neutralize the poison of these colu-
brine snakes. Practically this is a matter of little con-
sequence in Brazil, for the Brazilian coral-snakes are
dangerous only when mishandled by some one whose
bare skin is exposed to the bite. The numerous accidents
and fatalities continually occurring in Brazil are almost
always to be laid to the account of the several species of
lachecis and the single species of rattlesnake.

Finally, the doctor took us into his lecture-room to
show us how he conducted his experiments. The various
snakes were in boxes, on one side of the room, under
the care of a skilful and impassive assistant, who handled
them with the cool and fearless caution of the doctor
himself. The poisonous ones were taken out by means
of a long-handled steel hook. All that is necessary to
do is to insert this under the snake and lift him off the
ground. He is not only unable to escape, but he is un-
able to strike, for he cannot strike unless coiled so as to
give himself support and leverage. The table on which
the snakes are laid is fairly large and smooth, differing
in no way from an ordinary table.

There were a number of us in the room, including
two or three photographers. The doctor first put on the
table a non-poisonous but very vicious and truculent
colubrine snake. It struck right and left at us. Then
the doctor picked it up, opened its mouth, and showed
that it had no fangs, and handed it to me. I also opened
its mouth and examined its teeth, and then put it down,
whereupon, its temper having been much ruffled, it struck

The Start 17

violently at me two or three times. In its action and
temper this snake was quite as vicious as the most irrita-
ble poisonous snakes. Yet it is entirely harmless. One
of the innumerable mysteries of nature which are at
present absolutely insoluble is why some snakes should
be so vicious and others absolutely placid and good-
tempered.

After removing the vicious harmless snake, the doc-
tor warned us to get away from the table, and his attend-
ant put on it, in succession, a very big lachecis—of the
kind called bushmaster—and a big rattlesnake. Each
coiled menacingly, a formidable brute ready to attack
anything that approached. Then the attendant adroitly
dropped his iron crook on the neck of each in succession,
seized it right behind the head, and held it toward the
doctor. The snake’s mouth was in each case wide open,
and the great fangs erect and very evident. It would
not have been possible to have held an African ring-
necked cobra in such fashion, because the ring-neck
would have ejected its venom through the fangs into the
eyes of the onlookers. There was no danger in this case,
and the doctor inserted a shallow glass saucer into the
mouth of the snake behind the fangs, permitted it to
eject its poison, and then himself squeezed out the re-
maining poison from the poison-bags through the fangs.
From the big lachecis came a large quantity of yellow
venom, a liquid which speedily crystallized into a number
of minute crystals. The rattlesnake yielded a much less
quantity of white venom, which the doctor assured us
was far more active than the yellow lachecis venom.
Then each snake was returned to its box unharmed.

18 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

After this the doctor took out of a box and presented
to mea fine, handsome, nearly black snake, an individual
of the species called the mussurama. This is in my eyes
perhaps the most interesting serpent in the world. It is
a big snake, four or five feet long, sometimes even longer,
nearly black, lighter below, with a friendly, placid tem-
per. It lives exclusively on other snakes, and is com-
pletely immune to the poison of the lachecis and rattle-
snake groups, which contain all the really dangerous
snakes of America. Doctor Brazil told me that he had
conducted many experiments with this interesting snake.
It is not very common, and prefers wet places in which
to live. It lays eggs, and the female remains coiled above
the eggs, the object being apparently not to warm them,
but to prevent too great evaporation. It will not eat when
moulting, nor in cold weather. Otherwise it will eat a
small snake every five or six days, or a big one every
fortnight.

There is the widest difference, both among poisonous
and non-poisonous snakes, not alone in nervousness and
irascibility but also in ability to accustom themselves to
out-of-the-way surroundings. Many species of non-poi-
sonous snakes which are entirely harmless, to man or to
any other animal except their small prey, are neverthe-
less very vicious and truculent, striking right and left
and biting freely on the smallest provocation—this is the
case with the species of which the doctor had previously
placed a specimen on the table. Moreover, many snakes,
some entirely harmless and some vicious ones, are so
nervous and uneasy that it is with the greatest difficulty
they can be induced to eat in captivity, and the slightest

The Start 19

disturbance or interference will prevent their eating.
There are other snakes, however, of which the mus-
surama is perhaps the best example, which are very good
captives, and at the same time very fearless, showing a
complete indifference not only to being observed but to
being handled when they are feeding.

There is in the United States a beautiful and attrac-
tive snake, the king-snake, with much the same habits
as the mussurama. It is friendly toward mankind, and
not poisonous, so that it can be handled freely. It feeds
on other serpents, and will kill a rattlesnake as big as
itself, being immune to the rattlesnake venom. Mr.
Ditmars, of the Bronx Zoo, has made many interesting
experiments with these king-snakes. I have had them
in my own possession. They are good-natured and can
generally be handled with impunity, but I have known
them to bite, whereas Doctor Brazil informed me that
it was almost impossible to make the mussurama bite a
man. The king-snake will feed greedily on other snakes
in the presence of man—I knew of one case where it
partly swallowed another snake while both were in a
small boy’s pocket. It is immune to viper poison but it
is not immune to colubrine poison. A couple of years
ago I was informed of a case where one of these king-
snakes was put into an enclosure with an Indian snake-
eating cobra or hamadryad of about the same size. It
killed the cobra but made no effort to swallow it, and
very soon showed the effects of the cobra poison. I be-
lieve it afterward died, but unfortunately I have mislaid
my notes and cannot now remember the details of the
incident.

20 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

Doctor Brazil informed me that the mussurama, like
the king-snake, was not immune to the colubrine poison.
A mussurama in his possession, which had with im-
punity killed and eaten several rattlesnakes and repre-
sentatives of the lachecis genus, also killed and ate a
venomous coral-snake, but shortly afterward itself died
from the effects of the poison. It is one of the many
puzzles of nature that these American serpents which
kill poisonous serpents should only have grown immune
to the poison of the most dangerous American poisonous
serpents, the pit-vipers, and should not have become im-
mune to the poison of the coral-snakes which are com-
monly distributed throughout their range. Yet, judging
by the one instance mentioned by Doctor Brazil, they
attack and master these coral-snakes, although the con-
flict in the end results in their death. It would be inter-
esting to find out whether this attack was exceptional,
that is, whether the mussurama has or has not as a species
learned to avoid the coral-snake. If it was not excep-
tional, then not only is the instance highly curious in
itself, but it would also go far to explain the failure of
the mussurama to become plentiful.

For the benefit of those who are not acquainted with
the subject, I may mention that the poison of a poison-
ous snake is not dangerous to its own species unless in-
jected in very large doses, about ten times what would
normally be injected by a bite; but that it is deadly to
all other snakes, poisonous or non-poisonous, save as re-
gards the very few species which themselves eat poison-
ous snakes. The Indian hamadryad, or giant cobra, is
exclusively a snake-eater. It evidently draws a sharp

The Start 21

distinction between poisonous and non-poisonous snakes,
for Mr. Ditmars has recorded that two individuals in
the Bronx Zoo which are habitually fed on harmless
snakes, and attack them eagerly, refused to attack a cop-
perhead which was thrown into their cage, being evi-
dently afraid of this pit-viper. It would be interesting
to find out if the hamadryad is afraid to prey on all pit-
vipers, and also whether it will prey on its small relative,
the true cobra—for it may well be that, even if not im-
mune to the viper poison, it is immune to the poison of
its close ally, the smaller cobra.

All these and many other questions would be speedily
settled by Doctor Brazil if he were given the opportunity
to test them. It must be remembered, moreover, that not
only have his researches been of absorbing value from
the standpoint of pure science but that they also have a
real utilitarian worth. He is now collecting and breed-
ing the mussurama. ‘The favorite prey of the mus-
surama is the most common and therefore the most dan-
gerous poisonous snake of Brazil, the jararaca, which is
known in Martinique as the 'fer-de-lance. In Martinique
and elsewhere this snake is such an object of terror as
to be at times a genuine scourge. Surely it would be
worth while for the authorities of Martinique to import
specimens of the mussurama to that island. The mor-
tality from snake-bite in British India is very great.
Surely it would be well worth while for the able Indian
Government to copy Brazil and create such an institute
as that over which Doctor Vital Brazil is the curator.

At first sight it seems extraordinary that poisonous
serpents, so dreaded by and so irresistible to most ani-

22 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

mals, should be so utterly helpless before the few crea-
tures that prey on them. But the explanation is easy.
Any highly specialized creature, the higher its specializa-
tion, is apt to be proportionately helpless when once its
peculiar specialized traits’ are effectively nullified by an
opponent. This is eminently the case with the most dan-
gerous poisonous snakes. In them a highly peculiar
specialization has been carried to the highest point. They
rely for attack and defence purely on their poison-fangs.
All other means and methods of attack and defence have
atrophied. They neither crush nor tear with their teeth
nor constrict with their bodies. The poison-fangs are
slender and delicate, and, save for the poison, the wound
inflicted is of a trivial character. In consequence they
are utterly helpless in the presence of any animal which
the poison does not affect. There are several mammals
immune to snake-bite, including various species of hedge-
hog, pig, and mongoose—the other mammals which kill
them do so by pouncing on them unawares or by avoid-
ing their stroke through sheer quickness of movement;
and probably this is the case with most snake-eating
birds. The mongoose is very quick, but in some cases
at least—I have mentioned one in the “African Game
Trails’”—it permits itself to be bitten by poisonous snakes,
treating the bite with utter indifference. There should
be extensive experiments made to determine if there are
species of mongoose immune to both cobra and viper
poison. Hedgehogs, as determined by actual experi-
ments, pay no heed at all to viper poison even when
bitten on such tender places as the tongue and lips and
eat the snake as if it were a radish. Even among animals

The Start 23

which are not immune to the poison different species are
very differently affected by the different kinds of snake
poisons. Not only are some species more resistant than
others to all poisons, but there is a wide variation in the
amount of immunity each displays to any given venom.
One species will be quickly killed by the poison from
one species of snake, and be fairly resistant to the poison
of another; whereas in another species the conditions
may be directly reversed.

The mussurama which Doctor Brazil handed me was
a fine specimen, perhaps four and a half feet long. I
lifted the smooth, lithe bulk in my hands, and then let
it twist its coils so that it rested at ease in my arms; it
glided to and fro, on its own length, with the sinuous
grace of its kind, and showed not the slightest trace of
either nervousness or bad temper. Meanwhile the doc-
tor bade his attendant put on the table a big jararaca,
or fer-de-lance, which was accordingly done. The jara-
raca was about three feet and a half, or perhaps nearly
four feet long—that is, it was about nine inches shorter
than the mussurama. The latter, which I continued to
hold in my arms, behaved with friendly and impassive
indifference, moving easily to and fro through my hands,
and once or twice hiding its head between the sleeve and
the body of my coat. The doctor was not quite sure
how the mussurama would behave, for it had recently
eaten a small snake, and unless hungry it pays no atten-
tion whatever to venomous snakes, even when they at-
tack and bite it. However, it fortunately proved still to
have a good appetite.

The jararaca was alert and vicious. It partly coiled

24 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

itself on the table, threatening the bystanders. I put the
big black serpent down on the table four or five feet
from the enemy and headed in its direction. As soon as
I let go with my hands it glided toward where the threat-
ening, formidable-looking lance-head lay stretched in a
half coil. The mussurama displayed not the slightest
sign of excitement. Apparently it trusted little to its
eyes, for it began to run its head along the body of the
jararaca, darting out its flickering tongue to feel just
where it was, as it nosed its way up toward the head of.
its antagonist. So placid were its actions that I did not
at first suppose that it meant to attack, for there was not
the slightest exhibition of anger or excitement.

It was the jararaca that began the fight. It showed
no fear whatever of its foe, but its irritable temper was
aroused by the proximity and actions of the other, and
like a flash it drew back its head and struck, burying its
fangs in the forward part of the mussurama’s body.
Immediately the latter struck in return, and the counter-
attack was so instantaneous that it was difficult to see
just what had happened. There was tremendous writh-
ing and struggling on the part of the jararaca; and then,
leaning over the knot into which the two serpents were
twisted, I saw that the mussurama had seized the jararaca
by the lower jaw, putting its own head completely into
the wide-gaping mouth of the poisonous snake. The
long fangs were just above the top of the mussurama’s
head; and it appeared, as well as I could see, that they
were once again driven into the mussurama; but without
the slightest effect. Then the fangs were curved back in

The Start 25

the jaw, a fact which I particularly noted, and all effort
at the offensive was abandoned by the poisonous snake.

Meanwhile the mussurama was chewing hard, and
gradually shifted its grip, little by little, until it got the
top of the head of the jararaca in its mouth, the lower
jaw of the jararaca being spread out to one side. The ven-
omous serpent was helpless; the fearsome master of the
wild life of the forest, the deadly foe of humankind,
was itself held in the grip of death. Its cold, baleful
serpent’s eyes shone, as evil as ever. But it was dying.
In vain it writhed and struggled. Nothing availed it.

Once or twice the mussurama took a turn round the
middle of the body of its opponent, but it did not seem
to press hard, and apparently used its coils chiefly in
order to get a better grip so as to crush the head of its
antagonist, or to hold the latter in place. This crushing
was done by its teeth; and the repeated bites were made
with such effort that the muscles stood out on the mus-
surama’s neck. Then it took two coils round the neck
of the jararaca and proceeded deliberately to try to break
the backbone of its opponent by twisting the head round.
With this purpose it twisted its own head and neck round
so that the lighter-colored surface was uppermost; and
indeed at one time it looked as if it had made almost a
complete single spiral revolution of its own body. It
never for a moment relaxed its grip except to shift
slightly the jaws.

In a few minutes the jararaca was dead, its head
crushed in, although the body continued to move con-
vulsively. When satisfied that its opponent was dead,
the mussurama began to try to get the head in its mouth.

26 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

This was a process of some difficulty on account of the
angle at which the lower jaw of the jararaca stuck out.
But finally the head was taken completely inside and then
swallowed. After this, the mussurama proceeded de-
liberately, but with unbroken speed, to devour its oppo-
nent by the simple process of crawling outside it, the
body and tail of the jararaca writhing and struggling
until the last. During the early portion of the meal, the
mussurama put a stop to this writhing and struggling
by resting its own body on that of its prey; but toward
the last the part of the body that remained outside was
left free to wriggle as it wished.

Not only was the mussurama totally indifferent to
our presence, but it was totally indifferent to being han-
dled while the meal was going on. Several times I re-
placed the combatants in the middle of the table when
they had writhed to the edge, and finally, when the pho-
tographers found that they could not get good pictures,
I held the mussurama up against a white background
with the partially swallowed snake in its mouth; and the
feast went on uninterruptedly. I never saw cooler or
more utterly unconcerned conduct; and the ease and cer-
tainty with which the terrible poisonous snake was mas-
tered gave me the heartiest respect and liking for the
easy-going, good-natured, and exceedingly efficient ser-
pent which I had been holding in my arms.

Our trip was not intended as a hunting-trip but as a
scientific expedition. Before starting on the trip itself,
while travelling in the Argentine, I received certain pieces
of first-hand information concerning the natural history

The Start 27

of the jaguar, and of the cougar, or puma, which are
worth recording. The facts about the jaguar are not
new in the sense of casting new light on its character,
although they are interesting; but the facts about the
behavior of the puma in one district of Patagonia are
of great interest, because they give an entirely new side
of its life-history.

There was travelling with me at the time Doctor
Francisco P. Moreno, of Buenos Aires. Doctor Mo-
reno is at the present day a member of the National
Board of Education of the Argentine, a man who has
worked in every way for the benefit of his country, per-
haps especially for the benefit of the children, so that
when he was first introduced to me it was as the “Jacob
Riis of the Argentine’—for they know my deep and
affectionate intimacy with Jacob Riis. He is also an
eminent man of science, who has done admirable work
as a geologist and a geographer. At one period, in con-
nection with his duties as a boundary commissioner on
the survey between Chile and the Argentine, he worked
for years in Patagonia. It was he who made the ex-
traordinary discovery in a Patagonian cave of the still
fresh fragments of skin and other remains of the my-
lodon, the aberrant horse known as the onohipidium,
the huge South American tiger, and the macrauchenia,
all of them extinct animals. This discovery showed
that some of the strange representatives of the giant
South American pleistocene fauna had lasted down to
within a comparatively few thousand years, down to the
time when man, substantially as the Spaniards found
him, flourished on the continent. Incidentally the dis-

28 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

covery tended to show that this fauna had lasted much
later in South America than was the case with the cor-
responding faunas in other parts of the world; and there-
fore it tended to disprove the claims advanced by Doctor
Ameghino for the extreme age, geologically, of this
fauna, and for the extreme antiquity of man on the
American continent.

One day Doctor Moreno handed me a copy of The
Outlook containing my account of a cougar-hunt in Ari-
zona, saying that he noticed that I had very little faith
in cougars attacking men, although I had explicitly stated
that such attacks sometimes occurred. I told him, Yes,
that I had found that the cougar was practically harmless
to man, the undoubtedly authentic instances of attacks on
men being so exceptional that they could in practice be
wholly disregarded. Thereupon Doctor Moreno showed
me a scar on his face, and told me that he had himself
been attacked and badly mauled by a puma which was
undoubtedly trying to prey on him; that is, which had
started on a career as a man-eater. This was to me
most interesting. I had often met men who knew other
men who had seen other men who said that they had
been attacked by pumas, but this was the first time that
I had ever come across a man who had himself been
attacked. Doctor Moreno, as I have said, is not only
an eminent citizen, but an eminent scientific man, and his
account of what occurred is unquestionably a scientifi-
cally accurate statement of the facts. I give it exactly
as the doctor told it; paraphrasing a letter he sent me,
and including one or two answers to questions I put
to him. The doctor, by the way, stated to me that he

The Start 29

had known Mr. Hudson, the author of the “Naturalist
on the Plata,” and that the latter knew nothing what-
ever of pumas from personal experience and had ac-
cepted as facts utterly wild fables.

Undoubtedly, said the doctor, the puma in South
America, like the puma in North America, is, as a general
rule, a cowardly animal which not only never attacks
man, but rarely makes any efficient defence when at-
tacked. The Indian and white hunters have no fear
of it in most parts of the country, and its harmlessness
to man is proverbial. But there is one particular spot
in southern Patagonia where cougars, to the doctor’s own
personal knowledge, have for years been dangerous foes
of man. This curious local change in habits, by the
way, is nothing unprecedented as regards wild animals.
In portions of its range, as I am informed by Mr. Lord
Smith, the Asiatic tiger can hardly be forced to fight
man, and never preys on him, while throughout most
of its range it is a most dangerous beast, and often turns
man-eater. So there are waters in which sharks are
habitual man-eaters, and others where they never touch
men; and there are rivers and lakes where crocodiles
or caymans are very dangerous, and others where they
are practically harmless—I have myself seen this in
Africa.

In March, 1877, Doctor Moreno with a party of men
working on the boundary commission, and with a num-
ber of Patagonian horse-Indians, was encamped for some
weeks beside Lake Viedma, which had not before been
visited by white men for a century, and which was
rarely visited even by Indians. One morning, just be-

30 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

fore sunrise, he left his camp by the south shore of
the lake, to make a topographical sketch of the lake.
He was unarmed, but carried a prismatic compass in a
leather case with a strap. It was cold, and he wrapped
his poncho of guanaco-hide round his neck and head.
He had walked a few hundred yards, when a puma, a
female, sprang on him from behind and knocked him
down. As she sprang on him she tried to seize his
head with one paw, striking him on the shoulder with
the other. She lacerated his mouth and also his back,
but tumbled over with him, and in the scuffle they sepa-
rated before she could bite him. He sprang to his feet,
and, as he said, was forced to think quickly. She had
recovered herself, and sat on her haunches like a cat,
looking at him, and then crouched jo spring again;
whereupon he whipped off his poncho, and as she sprang
at him he opened it, and at the same moment hit her
head with the prismatic compass in its case which he
held by the strap. She struck the poncho and was evi-
dently puzzled by it, for, turning, she slunk off to one
side, under a bush, and then proceeded to try to get
round behind him. He faced her, keeping his eyes upon
her, and backed off. She followed him for three or
four hundred yards. At least twice she came up to
attack him, but each time he opened his poncho and
yelled, and at the last moment she shrank back. She
continually, however, tried, by taking advantage of cover,
to sneak up to one side, or behind, to attack him.
Finally, when he got near camp, she abandoned the pur-
suit and went into a small patch of bushes. He raised
the alarm; an Indian rode up and set fire to the bushes

The Start 31

from the windward side. When the cougar broke from
the bushes, the Indian rode after her, and threw his
bolas, which twisted around her hind legs; and while
she was struggling to free herself, he brained her with
his second bolas. The doctor’s injuries were rather pain-
ful, but not serious.

Twenty-one years later, in April, 1898, he was
camped on the same lake, but on the north shore, at the
foot of a basaltic cliff. He was in company with four
soldiers, with whom he had travelled from the Strait
of Magellan. In the night he was aroused by the shriek
of a man and the barking of his dogs. As the men
sprang up from where they were lying asleep they saw a
large puma run off out of the firelight into the darkness.
It had sprung on a soldier named Marcelino Huquen
while he was asleep, and had tried to carry him off.
Fortunately, the man was so wrapped up in his blanket,
as the night was cold, that he was not injured. The
puma was never found or killed.

About the same time a surveyor of Doctor Moreno’s
party, a Swede named Arneberg, was attacked in similar
fashion. The doctor was not with him at the time. Mr.
Arneberg was asleep in the forest near Lake San Martin
The cougar both bit and clawed him, and tore his mouth,
breaking out three teeth, The man was rescued; but
this puma also escaped.

The doctor stated that in this particular locality the
Indians, who elsewhere paid no heed whatever to the
puma, never let their women go out after wood for fuel
unless two or three were together. This was because
on several occasions women who had gone out alone

32 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

were killed by pumas. Evidently in this one locality the
habit of at least occasional man-eating has become chronic
with a species which elsewhere is the most cowardly,
and.to man the least dangerous, of all the big cats.

These observations of Doctor Moreno have a peculiar
value, because, as far as I know, they are the first trust-
worthy accounts of a cougar’s having attacked man save
under circumstances so exceptional as to make the at-
tack signify little more than the similar exceptional in-
stances of attack by various other species of wild ani-
mals that are not normally dangerous to man.

The jaguar, however, has long been known not only
to be a dangerous foe when itself attacked, but also
now and then to become a man-eater. Therefore the
instances of such attacks furnished me are of merely
corroborative value.

In the excellent zoological gardens at Buenos Aires
the curator, Doctor Onelli, a naturalist of note, showed
us a big male jaguar which had been trapped in the
Chaco, where it had already begun a career as a man-
eater, having killed three persons. They were killed, and
two of them were eaten; the animal was trapped, in con-
sequence of the alarm excited by the death of his third
victim. This jaguar was very savage; whereas a young
jaguar, which was in a cage with a young tiger, was
playful and friendly, as was also the case with the young
tiger. On my trip to visit La Plata Museum I was
accompanied by Captain Vicente Montes, of the Argen-
tine Navy, an accomplished officer of scientific attain-
ments. He had at one time been engaged on a survey
of the boundary between the Argentine and Parana and

The Start ae

Brazil. They had a quantity of dried beef in camp.
On several occasions a jaguar came into camp after this
dried beef. Finally they succeeded in protecting it so
that he could not reach it. The result, however, was
disastrous. On the next occasion that he visited camp,
at midnight, he seized a man. Everybody was asleep
at the time, and the jaguar came in so noiselessly as to
elude the vigilance of the dogs. As he seized the man,
the latter gave one yell, but the next moment was killed,
the jaguar driving his fangs through the man’s skull
into the brain. There was a scene of uproar and con-
fusion, and the jaguar was forced to drop his prey and
flee into the woods. Next morning they followed him
with the dogs, and finally killed him. He was a large
male, in first-class condition. The only feature of note
about these two incidents was that in each case the man-
eater was a powerful animal in the prime of life; where-
as it frequently happens that the jaguars that turn man-
eaters are old animals, and have become too inactive or
too feeble to catch their ordinary prey.

During the two months before starting from Asun-
cion, in Paraguay, for our journey into the interior, I
was kept so busy that I had scant time to think of natu-
ral history. But in a strange land a man who cares for
wild birds and wild beasts always sees and hears some-
thing that is new to him and interests him. In the dense
tropical woods near Rio Janeiro I heard in late October
—springtime, near the southern tropic—the songs of
many birds that I could not identify. But the most
beautiful music was from a shy woodland thrush, som-

34 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

bre-colored, which lived near the ground in the thick
timber, but sang high among the branches. At a great
distance we could hear the ringing, musical, bell-like note,
long-drawn and of piercing sweetness, which occurs at
intervals in the song; at first I thought this was the
song, but when it was possible to approach the singer
I found that these far-sounding notes were scattered
through a continuous song of great melody. I never
listened to one that impressed me more. In different
places in Argentina I heard and saw: the Argentine mock-
ing-bird, which is not very unlike our own, and is also
a delightful and remarkable singer. But I never heard
the wonderful white-banded mocking-bird, which is said
by Hudson, who knew well the birds of both South
America and Europe, to be the song-king of them all.
Most of the birds I thus noticed while hurriedly pass-
ing through the country were, of course, the conspicuous
ones. The spurred lapwings, big, tame, boldly marked
plover, were everywhere; they were very noisy and active
and both inquisitive and daring, and they have a very
curious dance custom. No man need look for them.
They will look for him, and when they find him they
will fairly yell the discovery to the universe. In the
marshes of the lower Parana I saw flocks of scarlet-
headed blackbirds on the tops of the reeds; the females
are as strikingly colored as the males, and their jet-black
bodies and brilliant red heads make it impossible for
them to escape observation among their natural surround-
ings. On the plains to the west I saw flocks of the
beautiful rose-breasted starlings; unlike the red-headed
blackbirds, which seemed fairly to court attention, these

The Start 35

starlings sought to escape observation by crouching on
the ground so that their red breasts were hidden. There
were yellow-shouldered blackbirds in wet places, and cow-
buntings abounded.

But the most conspicuous birds I saw were members
of the family of tyrant flycatchers, of which our own
king-bird is the most familiar example. This family is
very numerously represented in Argentina, both in spe-
cies and individuals. Some of the species are so striking,
both in color and habits, and in one case also in shape,
as to attract the attention of even the unobservant. The
least conspicuous, and nevertheless very conspicuous,
among those that I saw was the bientevido, which is
brown above, yellow beneath, with a boldly marked
black and white head, and a yellow crest. It is very
noisy, is common in the neighborhood of houses, and
builds a big domed nest. It is really a big, heavy king-
bird, fiercer and more powerful than any northern king-
bird. I saw them assail not only the big but the small
hawks with fearlessness, driving them in headlong flight.
They not only capture insects, but pounce on mice, small
frogs, lizards, and little snakes, rob birds’ nests of the
fledgling young, and catch tadpoles and even small fish.

Two of the tyrants which I observed are like two
with which I grew fairly familiar in Texas. The scissor-
tail is common throughout the open country, and the
long tail feathers, which seem at times to hamper its
flight, attract attention whether the bird is in flight or
perched on a tree. It has a habit of occasionally soar-
ing into the air and descending in loops and spirals.
The scarlet tyrant I saw in the orchards and gardens.

36 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

The male is a fascinating little bird, coal-black above,
while his crested head and the body beneath are brilliant
scarlet. He utters his rapid, low-voiced musical trill
in the air, rising with fluttering wings to a height of a
hundred feet, hovering while he sings, and then falling
back to earth. The color of the bird and the character
of his performance attract the attention of every ob-
server, bird, beast, or man, within reach of vision.
The red-backed tyrant is utterly unlike any of his
kind in the United States, and until I looked him up in
Sclater and Hudson’s ornithology I never dreamed that
he belonged to this family. He—for only the male is
so brightly colored—is coal-black with a dull-red back.
T saw these birds on December 1 near Barilloche, out on
the bare Patagonian plains. They behaved like pipits
or longspurs, running actively over the ground in the
same manner and showing the same restlessness and the
same kind of flight. But whereas pipits are inconspicu-
ous, the red-backs at once attracted attention by the con-
trast between their bold coloring and the grayish or yel-
lowish tones of the ground along which they ran. The
silver-bill tyrant, however, is much more conspicuous; I
saw it in the same neighborhood as the red-back and also
in many other places. The male is jet-black, with white
bill and wings. He runs about on the ground like a
pipit, but also frequently perches on some bush to go
through a strange flight-song performance. He perches
motionless, bolt upright, and even then his black coloring
advertises him for a quarter of a mile round about.
But every few minutes he springs up into the air to the
height of twenty or thirty feet, the white wings flashing

The Start a9

in contrast to the black body, screams and gyrates, and
then instantly returns to his former post and resumes his
erect pose of waiting. It is hard to imagine a more
conspicuous bird than the silver-bill; but the next and
last tyrant flycatcher of which I shall speak possesses on
the whole the most advertising coloration of any small
bird I have ever seen in the open country, and more-
over this advertising coloration exists in both sexes and
throughout the year. It is a brilliant white, all over,
except the long wing-quills and the ends of the tail-
feathers, which are black. The first one I saw, at a
very long distance, I thought must be an albino. It
perches on the top of a bush or tree watching for its
prey, and it shines in the sun like a silver mirror. Every
hawk, cat, or man must see it; no one can help seeing it.

These common Argentine birds, most of them of the
open country, and all of them with a strikingly advertis-
ing coloration, are interesting because of their beauty and
their habits. They are also interesting because they offer
such illuminating examples of the truth that many of the
most common and successful birds not merely lack a con-
cealing coloration, but possess a coloration which is in
the highest degree revealing. The coloration and the
habits of most of these birds are such that every hawk
or other foe that can see at all must have its attention
attracted to them. Evidently in their cases neither the
coloration nor any habit of concealment based on the
coloration is a survival factor, and this although they
live in a land teeming with bird-eating hawks. Among
the higher vertebrates there are many known factors
which have influence, some in one set of cases, some in

38 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

another set of cases, in the development and preservation
of species. Courage, intelligence, adaptability, prowess,
bodily vigor, speed, alertness, ability to hide, ability to
build structures which will protect the young while they
are helpless, fecundity—all, and many more like them,
have their several places; and behind all these visible
causes there are at work other and often more potent
causes of which as yet science can say nothing. Some
species owe much to a given attribute which may be
wholly lacking in influence on other species; and every
one of the attributes above enumerated is a survival
factor in some species, while in others it has no sur-
vival value whatever, and in yet others, although of
benefit, it is not of sufficient benefit to offset the benefit
conferred on foes or rivals by totally different attri-
butes. Intelligence, for instance, is of course a survival
factor ; but to-day there exist multitudes of animals with
very little intelligence which have persisted through im-
mense periods of geologic time either unchanged or else
without any change in the direction of increased intelli-
gence; and during their species-life they have witnessed
the death of countless other species of far greater in-
telligence but in other ways less adapted to succeed in
the environmental complex. The same statement can be
made of all the many, many other known factors in de-
velopment, from fecundity to concealing coloration; and
behind them lie forces as to which we veil our ignorance
by the use of high-sounding nomenclature—as when we
use such a convenient but far from satisfactory term as
orthogenesis.

CHAPTER II

UP THE PARAGUAY

N the afternoon of December 9 we left the at-
O tractive and picturesque city of Asuncion to
ascend the Paraguay. With generous courtesy

the Paraguayan Government had put at my disposal the
gunboat-yacht of the President himself, a most comfort-
able river steamer, and so the opening days of our trip
were pleasant in every way. The food was good, our
quarters were clean, we slept well, below or on deck,
usually without our mosquito-nettings, and in daytime
the deck was pleasant under the awnings. It was hot,
of course, but we were dressed suitably in our exploring
and hunting clothes and did not mind the heat. The river
was low, for there had been dry weather for some weeks
—judging from the vague and contradictory informa-
tion I received there is much elasticity to the terms wet
season and dry season at this part of the Paraguay.
Under the brilliant sky we steamed steadily up the
mighty river; the sunset was glorious as we leaned on
the port railing; and after nightfall the moon, nearly
full and hanging high in the heavens, turned the water
to shimmering radiance. On the mud-flats and sand-
bars, and among the green rushes of the bays and inlets,
were stately water-fowl; crimson flamingoes and rosy
spoonbills, dark-colored ibis and white storks with black

39

40 ‘Through the Brazilian Wilderness

wings. Darters, with snakelike necks and pointed bills,
perched in the trees on the brink of the river. Snowy
egrets flapped across the marshes. Caymans were com-
mon, and differed from the crocodiles we had seen in
Africa in two points: they were not alarmed by the
report of a rifle when fired at, and they lay with the
head raised instead of stretched along the sand.

For three days, as we steamed northward toward the
Tropic of Capricorn, and then passed it, we were within
the Republic of Paraguay. On our right, to the east,
there was a fairly well-settled country, where bananas
and oranges were cultivated and other crops of hot coun-
tries raised. On the banks we passed an occasional small
town, or saw a ranch-house close to the river’s brink, or
stopped for wood at some little settlement. Across the
river to the west lay the level, swampy, fertile wastes
known as the Chaco, still given over either to the wild
Indians or to cattle-ranching on a gigantic scale. The
broad river ran in curves between mud-banks where ter-
races marked successive periods of flood. A belt of for-
est stood on each bank, but it was only a couple of
hundred yards wide. Back of it was the open country;
on the Chaco side this was a vast plain of grass, dotted
with tall, graceful palms. In places the belt of forest
vanished and the palm-dotted prairie came to the river’s
edge. The Chaco is an ideal cattle country, and not
really unhealthy. It will be covered with ranches at a
not distant day. But mosquitoes and many other winged
insect pests swarm over it. Cherrie and Miller had spent
a week there collecting mammals and birds prior to my
arrival at Asuncion. They were veterans of the tropics,

Up the Paraguay 4I

hardened to the insect plagues of Guiana and the Orinoco.
But they reported that never had they been so tortured
as in the Chaco. The sand-flies crawled through the
meshes in the mosquito-nets, and forbade them to sleep ;
if in their sleep a knee touched the net the mosquitoes
fell on it so that it looked as if riddled by birdshot;
and the nights were a torment, although they had done
well in their work, collecting some two hundred and
fifty specimens of birds and mammals.

Nevertheless for some as yet inscrutable reason the
river served as a barrier to certain insects which are men-
aces to the cattlemen. With me on the gunboat was an
old Western friend, Tex Rickard, of the Panhandle and
Alaska and various places in between. He now has a
large tract of land and some thirty-five thousand head of
cattle in the Chaco, opposite Concepcion, at which city
he was to stop. He told me that horses did not do well
in the Chaco but that cattle throve, and that while ticks
swarmed on the east bank of the great river, they would
not live on the west bank. Again and again he had
crossed herds of cattle which were covered with the
loathsome bloodsuckers; and in a couple of months every
tick would be dead. The worst animal foes of man,
indeed the only dangerous foes, are insects; and this is
especially true in the tropics. Fortunately, exactly as
certain differences too minute for us as yet to explain
render some insects deadly to man or domestic animals,
while closely allied forms are harmless, so, for other
reasons, which also we are not as yet able to fathom,
these insects are for the most part strictly limited by
geographical and other considerations. The war against

42 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

what Sir Harry Johnston calls the really material devil,
the devil of evil wild nature in the tropics, has been
waged with marked success only during the last two
decades. The men, in the United States, in England,
France, Germany, Italy—the men like Doctor Cruz in
Rio Janeiro and Doctor Vital Brazil in Sao Paulo—
who work experimentally within and without the labora-
tory in their warfare against the disease and death bear-
ing insects and microbes, are the true leaders in: the fight
to make the tropics the home of civilized man.

Late on the evening of the second day of our trip,
just before midnight, we reached Concepcion. On this
day, when we stopped for wood or to get provisions—
at picturesque places, where the women from rough
mud and thatched cabins were washing clothes in the
river, or where ragged horsemen stood gazing at us
from the bank, or where dark, well-dressed ranchmen
stood in front of red-roofed houses—we caught many
fish, They belonged to one of the most formidable
genera of fish in the world, the piranha or cannibal fish,
the fish that eats men when it can get the chance. Far-
ther north there are species of small piranha that go in
schools. At this point on the Paraguay the piranha
do not seem to go in regular schools, but they swarm
in all the waters and attain a length of eighteen inches
or over. They are the most ferocious fish in the world.
Even the most formidable fish, the sharks or the barra-
cudas, usually attack things smaller than themselves. But
the piranhas habitually attack things much larger than
themselves. They will snap a finger off a hand incau-
tiously trailed in the water; they mutilate swimmers—

Up the Paraguay 43

in every river town in Paraguay there are men who have
been thus mutilated; they will rend and devour alive
any wounded man or beast; for blood in the water ex-
cites them to madness. They will tear wounded wild
fowl to pieces; and bite off the tails of big fish as they
grow exhausted when fighting after being hooked. Mil-
ler, before I reached Asuncion, had been badly bitten by
one. Those that we caught sometimes bit through the
hooks, or the double strands of copper wire that served
as leaders, and got away. Those that we hauled on deck
lived for many minutes. Most predatory fish are long
and slim, like the alligator-gar and pickerel. But the
piranha is a short, deep-bodied fish, with a blunt face
and a heavily undershot or projecting lower jaw which
gapes widely. The razor-edged teeth are wedge-shaped
like a shark’s, and the jaw muscles possess great power.
The rabid, furious snaps drive the teeth through flesh
and bone. The head with its short muzzle, staring malig-
nant eyes, and gaping, cruelly armed jaws, is the em-
bodiment of evil ferocity; and the actions of the fish
exactly match its looks. I never witnessed an exhibition
of such impotent, savage fury as was shown by the
piranhas as they flapped on deck. When fresh from
the water and thrown on the boards they uttered an
extraordinary squealing sound. As they flapped about
they bit with vicious eagerness at whatever presented
itself. One of them flapped into a cloth and seized it
with a bulldog grip. Another grasped one of its fellows;
another snapped at a piece of wood, and left the teeth-
marks deep therein. They are the pests of the waters,
and it is necessary to be exceedingly cautious about either

44 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

swimming or wading where they are found. If cattle
are driven into, or of their own accord enter, the water,
they are commonly not molested; but if by chance some
unusually big or ferocious specimen of these fearsome
fishes does bite an animal—taking off part of an ear,
or perhaps of a teat from the udder of a cow—the
blood brings up every member of the ravenous throng
which is anywhere near, and unless the attacked animal
can immediately make its escape from the water it is
devoured alive. Here on the Paraguay the natives hold
them in much respect, whereas the caymans are not feared
at all. The only redeeming feature about them is that
they are themselves fairly good to eat, although with
too many bones.

At daybreak of the third day, finding we were still
moored off Concepcion, we were rowed ashore and
strolled off through the streets of the quaint, picturesque
old town; a town which, like Asuncion, was founded by
the conquistadores three-quarters of a century before our
own English and Dutch forefathers landed in what is
now the United States. The Jesuits then took practically
complete possession of what is now Paraguay, control-
ling and Christianizing the Indians, and raising their
flourishing missions to a pitch of prosperity they never
elsewhere achieved. They were expelled by the civil
authorities (backed by the other representatives of eccle-
siastical authority) some fifty years before Spanish
South America became independent. But they had al-
ready made the language of the Indians, Guarany, a cul-
ture-tongue, reducing it to writing, and printing religious
books in it. Guarany is one of the most wide-spread of

Up the Paraguay 45

the Indian tongues, being originally found in various
closely allied forms not only in Paraguay but in Uru-
guay and over the major part of Brazil. It remains
here and there, as a lingua geral at least, and doubtless
in cases as an original tongue, among the wild tribes.
In most of Brazil, as around Para and around Sado
Paulo, it has left its traces in place-names, but has been
completely superseded as a language by Portuguese. In
Paraguay it still exists side by side with Spanish as the
common language of the lower people and as a familiar
tongue among the upper classes. The blood of the peo-
ple is mixed, their language dual; the lower classes are
chiefly of Indian blood but with a white admixture;
while the upper classes are predominantly white, with a
strong infusion of Indian. There is no other case quite
parallel to this in the annals of European colonization,
although the Goanese in India have a native tongue and
a Portuguese creed, while in several of the Spanish-
American states the Indian blood is dominant and the
majority of the population speak an Indian tongue, per-
haps itself, as with the Quichuas, once a culture-tongue
of the archaic type. Whether in Paraguay one tongue
will ultimately drive out the other, and, if so, which will
be the victor, it is yet too early to prophesy. The Eng-
lish missionaries and the Bible Society have recently pub-
lished parts of the Scriptures in Guarany; and in Asun-
cion a daily paper is published with the text in parallel
columns, Spanish and Guarany—just as in Oklahoma
there is a similar paper published in English and in the
tongue which the extraordinary Cherokee chief Sequoia,
a veritable Cadmus, made a literary language.

46 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

The Guarany-speaking Paraguayan is a Christian, and
as much an inheritor of our common culture as most of
the peasant populations of Europe. He has no kinship
with the wild Indian, who hates and fears him. The
Indian of the Chaco, a pure savage, a bow-bearing sav-
age, will never come east of the Paraguay, and the Para-
guayan is only beginning to venture into the western in-
terior, away from the banks of the river—under the lead
of pioneer settlers like Rickard, whom, by the way, the
wild Indians thoroughly trust, and for whom they work
eagerly and faithfully. There is a great development
ahead for Paraguay, as soon as they can definitely shake
off the revolutionary habit and establish an orderly per-
manence of government. The people are a fine people;
the strains of blood—white and Indian—are good.

We walked up the streets of Concepcion, and inter-
estedly looked at everything of interest: at the one-story
houses, their windows covered with gratings of fretted
ironwork, and their occasional open doors giving us
glimpses into cool inner courtyards, with trees and flow-
ers; at the two-wheel carts, drawn by mules or oxen; at
an occasional rider, with spurs on his bare feet, and his
big toes thrust into the small stirrup-rings; at the little
stores, and the warehouses for matté and hides. Then
we came to a pleasant little inn, kept by a Frenchman
and his wife, of old Spanish style, with its patio, or inner
court, but as neat as an inn in Normandy or Brittany.
We were sitting at coffee, around a little table, when in
came the colonel of the garrison—for Concepcion is the
second city in Paraguay. He told me that they had pre-
pared a reception for me! I was in my rough hunting-

Up the Paraguay 47

clothes, but there was nothing to do but to accompany
my kind hosts and trust to their good nature to pardon
my shortcomings in the matter of dress. The colonel
drove me about in a smart open carriage, with two good
horses and a liveried driver. It was a much more fash-
ionable turnout than would be seen in any of our cities
save the largest, and even in them probably not in the
service of a public official. In all the South American
countries there is more pomp and ceremony in connection
with public functions than with us, and at these func-
tions the liveried servants, often with knee-breeches and
powdered hair, are like those’ seen at similar European
functions; there is not the democratic simplicity which
better suits our own habits of life and ways of thought.
But the South Americans often surpass us, not- merely
in pomp and ceremony but in what is of real importance,
courtesy; in civility and courtesy we can well afford to
take lessons from them.

We first visited the barracks, saw the troops in the
setting-up exercises, and inspected the arms, the artillery,
the equipment. There was a German lieutenant with the
Paraguayan officers; one of several German officers who
are now engaged in helping the Paraguayans with their
army. The equipments and arms were in good condi-
tion; the enlisted men evidently offered fine material;
and the officers were doing hard work. It is worth while
for anti-militarists to ponder the fact that in every South
American country where a really efficient army is de-
veloped, the increase in military efficiency goes hand in
hand with a decrease in lawlessness and disorder, and a
growing reluctance to settle internal disagreements by

48 ‘Through the Brazilian Wilderness

violence, They are introducing universal military serv-
ice in Paraguay ; the officers, many of whom have studied
abroad, are growing to feel an increased esprit de corps,
an increased pride in the army, and therefore a desire
to see the army made the servant of the nation as a
whole and not the tool of any faction or individual.
If these feelings grow strong enough they will be power-
ful factors in giving Paraguay what she most needs,
freedom from revolutionary disturbance and therefore
the chance to achieve the material prosperity without
which as a basis there can be no advance in other and
even more important matters.

Then I was driven to the City Hall, accompanied by
the intendente, or mayor, a German long settled in the
country and one of the leading men of the city. There
was a breakfast. When I had to speak I impressed into
my service as interpreter a young Paraguayan who was
a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania. He was
able to render into Spanish my ideas—on such subjects
as orderly liberty and the far-reaching mischief done by
the revolutionary habit—with clearness and vigor, be-
cause he thoroughly understood not only how I felt but
also the American way of looking at such things. My
hosts were hospitality itself, and I enjoyed the unex-
pected greeting.

We steamed on up the river. Now and then we
passed another boat—a steamer, or, to my surprise, per-
haps a barkentine or schooner. The Paraguay is a high-
way of traffic. Once we passed a big beef-canning fac-
tory. Ranches stood on either bank a few leagues apart,
and we stopped at wood-yards on the west bank. Indians

Up the Paraguay 49

worked around them. At one such yard the Indians
were evidently part of the regular force. Their squaws
weré with them, cooking at queer open-air ovens. One
small child had as pets a parrot and a young coati—a
kind of long-nosed raccoon. Loading wood, the Indians
stood in a line, tossing the logs from one to the other.
These Indians wore clothes,

On this day we got into the tropics. Even in the heat
of the day the deck was pleasant under the awnings;
the sun rose and set in crimson splendor; and the nights,
with the moon at the full, were wonderful. At night
Orion blazed overhead; and the Southern Cross hung
in the star-brilliant heavens behind us. But after the
moon rose the constellations paled; and clear in her
light the tree-clad banks stood on either hand as we
steamed steadily against the swirling current of the great
river.

At noon on the twelfth we were at the Brazilian
boundary. On this day we here and there came on low,
conical hills close to the river. In places the palm groves
broke through the belts of deciduous trees and stretched
for a mile or so right along the river’s bank. At times
we passed cattle on the banks or sand-bars, followed by
their herders; or a handsome ranch-house, under a clus-
ter. of shady trees, some bearing a wealth of red and
some a wealth of yellow blossoms; or we saw a horse-
corral among the trees close to the brink, with the horses
in it and a barefooted man in shirt and trousers leaning
against the fence; or a herd of cattle among the palms;
or a big tannery or factory or a little native hamlet came
in sight. We stopped at one tannery. The owner was a

50 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

Spaniard, the manager an “Oriental,” as he called him-
self, a Uruguayan, of German parentage. The peons,
or workers, who lived in a long line of wooden cabins
back of the main building, were mostly Paraguayans,
with a few Brazilians, and a dozen German and Argen-
tine foremen. There were also some wild Indians, who
were camped in the usual squalid fashion of Indians
who are hangers-on round the white man but have not
yet adopted his ways. Most of the men were at work
cutting wood for the tannery. The women and children
were in camp. Some individuals of both sexes were
naked to the waist. One little girl had a young ostrich
as a pet.

Water-fowl were plentiful. We saw large flocks of
wild muscovy ducks. Our tame birds come from this wild
species and its absurd misnaming dates back to the period
when the turkey and guinea-pig were misnamed in similar
fashion—our European forefathers taking a large and
hazy view of geography, and including Turkey, Guinea,
India, and Muscovy as places which, in their capacity of
being outlandish, could be comprehensively used as in-
cluding America. The muscovy ducks were very good
eating. Darters and cormorants swarmed. They wad-
dled on the sand-bars in big flocks and crowded the trees
by the water’s edge. Beautiful snow-white egrets also
lit in the trees, often well back from the river. A full-
foliaged tree of vivid green, its round surface crowded
with these birds, as if it had suddenly blossomed with
huge white flowers, is a sight worth seeing. Here and
there on the sand-bars we saw huge jabiru storks, and

Up the Paraguay 51

once a flock of white wood-ibis among the trees on the
bank.

On the Brazilian boundary we met a shallow river
steamer carrying Colonel Candido Mariano da Silva Ron-
don and several other Brazilian members of the expe-
dition. Colonel Rondon immediately showed that he was
all, and more than all, that could be desired. It was
evident that he knew his business thoroughly, and it
was equally evident that he would be a pleasant com-
panion. He was a classmate of Mr. Lauro Miiller at
the Brazilian Military Academy. He is of almost pure
Indian blood, and is a Positivist—the Positivists are a
really strong body in Brazil, as they are in France and
indeed in Chile. The colonel’s seven children have all
been formally made members of the Positivist Church
in Rio Janeiro. Brazil possesses the same complete lib-
erty in matters religious, spiritual, and intellectual as
we, for our great good fortune, do in the United States,
and my Brazilian companions included Catholics and
equally sincere men who described themselves as “libres
penseurs.” Colonel Rondon has spent the last twenty-
four years in exploring the western highlands of Brazil,
pioneering the way for telegraph-lines and railroads.
During that time he has travelled some fourteen thou-
sand miles, on territory most of which had not previously
been traversed by civilized man, and has built three thou-
sand miles of telegraph. He has an exceptional knowl-
edge of the Indian tribes and has always zealously en-
deavored to serve them and indeed to serve the cause
of humanity wherever and whenever he was able. Thanks
mainly to his efforts, four of the wild tribes of the

52 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

region he has explored have begun to tread the road of
civilization. They have taken the first steps toward be-
coming Christians. It may seem strange that among the
first-fruits of the efforts of a Positivist should be the
conversion of those he seeks to benefit to Christianity.
But in South America Christianity is at least as much a
status as a theology. It represents the indispensable first
step upward from savagery. In the wilder and poorer
districts men are divided into the two great classes of
“Christians” and “Indians.” When an Indian becomes
a Christian he is accepted into and becomes wholly ab-
sorbed or partly assimilated by the crude and simple
neighboring civilization, and then he moves up or down
like any one else among his fellows. |

Among Colonel Rondon’s companions were Captain
Amilcar de Magalhaes, Lieutenant Jodo Lyra, Lieutenant
Joaquin de Mello Filho, and Doctor Euzebio de Oliveira,
a geologist.

The steamers halted; Colonel Rondon and several of
his officers, spick and span in their white uniforms, came
aboard ; and in the afternoon I visited him on his steamer
to talk over our plans. When these had been fully dis-
cussed and agreed on we took tea. I happened to mention
that one of our naturalists, Miller, had been bitten by a
piranha, and the man-eating fish at once became the
subject of conversation. Curiously enough, one of the
Brazilian taxidermists had also just been severely bitten
by a piranha. My new companions had story after story
to tell of them. Only three weeks previously a twelve-
year-old boy who had gone in swimming near Corumba
was attacked, and literally devoured alive by them. Colo-

Up the Paraguay 53

nel Rondon during his exploring trips had met with
more than one unpleasant experience in connection with
them. He had lost one of his toes by the bite of a
piranha. He was about to bathe and had chosen a shal-
low pool at the edge of the river, which he carefully
inspected until he was satisfied that none of the man-
eating fish were in it; yet as soon as he put his foot
into the water one of them attacked him and bit off a
toe. On another occasion while wading across a narrow
stream one of his party was attacked; the fish bit him
on the thighs and buttocks, and when he put down his
hands tore them also; he was near the bank and by a
rush reached it and swung himself out of the water
by means of an overhanging limb of a tree; but he was
terribly injured, and it took him six months before his
wounds healed and he recovered. An extraordinary in-
cident occurred on another trip. The party were with-
out food and very hungry. On reaching a stream they
dynamited it, and waded in to seize the stunned fish as
they floated on the surface. One man, Lieutenant Pyri-
neus, having his hands full, tried to hold one fish by put-
ting its head into his mouth; it was a piranha and seem-
ingly stunned, but in a moment it recovered and bit a
big section out of his tongue. Such a hemorrhage fol-
lowed that his life was saved with the utmost difficulty.
On another occasion a member of the party was off by
himself on a mule. The mule came into camp alone.
Following his track back they came to a ford, where in
the water they found the skeleton of the dead man, his
clothes uninjured but every particle of flesh stripped
from his bones. Whether he had drowned, and the

54 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

fishes had then eaten his body, or whether they had killed
him it was impossible to say. They had not hurt the
clothes, getting in under them, which made it seem likely
that there had been no struggle. These man-eating fish
are a veritable scourge in the waters they frequent. But
it must not be understood by this that the piranhas—or,
for the matter of that, the New-World caymans and
crocodiles—ever become such dreaded foes of man as
for instance the man-eating crocodiles of Africa. Acci-
dents occur, and there are certain places where swim-
ming and bathing are dangerous; but in most places the
people swim freely, although they are usually careful to
find spots they believe safe or else to keep together and
make a splashing in the water.

During his trips Colonel Rondon had met with vari-
ous experiences with wild creatures. The Paraguayan
caymans are not ordinarily dangerous to man; but they
do sometimes become man-eaters and should be destroyed
whenever the opportunity offers. The huge caymans and
crocodiles of the Amazon are far more dangerous, and
the colonel knew of repeated instances where men, women
and children had become their victims. Once while dyna-
miting a stream for fish for his starving party he par-
tially stunned a giant anaconda, which he killed as it
crept slowly off. He said that it was of a size that no
other anaconda he had ever seen even approached, and
that in his opinion such a brute if hungry would readily
attack a full-grown man. Twice smaller anacondas had
attacked his dogs; one was carried under water—for the
anaconda is a water-loving serpent—but he rescued it.
One of his men was bitten by a jararaca; he killed the

Up the Paraguay 55

venomous snake, but was not discovered and brought
back to camp until it was too late to save his life. The
puma Colonel Rondon had found to be as cowardly as
T have always found it, but the jaguar was a formidable
beast, which occasionally turned man-eater, and often
charged savagely when brought to bay. He had known
a hunter to be killed by a jaguar he was following in
thick grass cover.

All such enemies, however, he regarded as utterly
trivial compared to the real dangers of the wilderness—
the torment and menace of attacks by the swarming in-
sects, by mosquitoes and the even more intolerable tiny
gnats, by the ticks, and by the vicious poisonous ants
which occasionally cause villages and even whole districts
to be deserted by human beings. These insects, and the
fevers they cause, and dysentery and starvation and
wearing hardship and accidents in rapids are what the
pioneer explorers have to fear. The conversation was
to me most interesting. The colonel spoke French about
to the extent I did; but of course he and the others
preferred Portuguese; and then Kermit was the inter-
preter.

In the evening, soon after moonrise, we stopped for
wood at the little Brazilian town of Porto Martinho.
There are about twelve hundred inhabitants. Some of
the buildings were of stone; a large private house with a
castellated tower was of stone; there were shops, and a
post-office, stores, a restaurant and billiard-hall, and
warehouses for matté, of which much is grown in the
region roundabout. Most of the houses were low, with
overhanging, sloping eaves; and there were gardens with

56 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

high walls, inside of which trees rose, many of them
fragrant. We wandered through the wide, dusty streets,
and along the narrow sidewalks. It was a hot, still
evening; the smell of the tropics was on the heavy De-
cember air. Through the open doors and windows we
caught dim glimpses of the half-clad inmates of the
poorer houses; women and young girls sat outside their
thresholds in the moonlight. All whom we met were
most friendly: the captain of the little Brazilian garrison;
the intendente, a local trader; another trader and ranch-
man, a Uruguayan, who had just received his newspaper
containing my speech in Montevideo, and who, as I gath-
ered from what I understood of his rather voluble Span-
ish, was much impressed by my views on democracy,
honesty, liberty, and order (rather well-worn topics);
and a Catalan who spoke French, and who was accom-
panied by his pretty daughter, a dear little girl of eight
or ten, who said with much pride that she spoke three
languages—Brazilian, Spanish, and Catalan! Her father
expressed strongly his desire for a church and for a
school in the little city.

When at last the wood was aboard we resumed our
journey. The river was like glass. In the white moon-
light the palms on the edge of the banks stood mirrored
in the still water. We sat forward and as we rounded
the curves the long silver reaches of the great stream
stretched ahead of us, and the ghostly outlines of hills
rose in the distance. Here and there prairie fires burned,
and the red glow warred with the moon’s radiance.

Next morning was overcast. Occasionally we passed
a wood-yard, or factory, or cabin, now on the eastern,

Up the Paraguay 57

the Brazilian, now on the western, the Paraguayan, bank.
The Paraguay was known to men of European birth,
bore soldiers and priests and merchants as they sailed
and rowed up and down the current of its stream, and
beheld little towns and forts rise on its banks, long before
the Mississippi had become the white man’s highway.
Now, along its upper course, the settlements are much
like those on the Mississippi at the end of the first quar-
ter of the last century; and in the not distant future it
will witness a burst of growth and prosperity much like
that which the Mississippi saw when the old men of to-
day were very young.

In the early forenoon we stopped at a little Para-
guayan hamlet, nestling in the green growth under a
group of low hills by the river-brink. On one of these
hills stood a picturesque old stone fort, known as Fort
Bourbon in the Spanish, the colonial, days. Now the
Paraguayan flag floats over it, and it is garrisoned by a
handful of Paraguayan soldiers. Here Father Zahm
baptized two children, the youngest of a large family
of fair-skinned, light-haired small people, whose father
was a Paraguayan and the mother an “Oriental,” or
Uruguayan. No priest had visited the village for three
years, and the children were respectively one and two
years of age. The sponsors included the local comman-
dante and a married couple from Austria. In answer to
what was supposed to be the perfunctory question
whether they were Catholics, the parents returned the
unexpected answer that they were not. Further ques-
tioning elicited the fact that the father called himself a
“free-thinking Catholic,” and the mother said she was

58 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

a “Protestant Catholic,” her mother having been a Prot-
estant, the daughter of an immigrant from Normandy.
However, it appeared that the older children had been
baptized by the Bishop of Asuncion, so Father Zahm
at the earnest request of the parents proceeded with the
ceremony. They were good people; and, although they
wished liberty to think exactly as they individually
pleased, they also wished to be connected and to have
their children connected with some church, by preference
the church of the majority of their people. A very short
experience of communities where there is no church
ought to convince the most heterodox of the absolute
need of a church. I earnestly wish that there could be
such an increase in the personnel and equipment of the
Catholic Church in South America as to permit the es-
tablishment of one good and earnest priest in every vil-
lage or little community in the far interior. Nor is there
any inconsistency between this wish and the further wish
that there could be a marked extension and development
of the native Protestant churches, such as I saw estab-
lished here and there in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argen-
tina, and of the Y. M. C. Associations. The bulk of
these good people who profess religion will continue to
be Catholics, but the spiritual needs of a more or less
considerable minority will best be met by the establish-
ment of Protestant churches, or in places even of a Posi-
tivist Church or Ethical Culture Society. Not only is
the establishment of such churches a good thing for the
body politic as a whole, but a good thing for the Catholic
Church itself; for their presence is a constant spur to
activity and clean and honorable conduct, and a constant

Up the Paraguay 59

reflection on sloth and moral laxity. The government
in each of these commonwealths is doing everything pos-
sible to further the cause of education, and the tendency
is to treat education as peculiarly a function of govern-
ment and to make it, where the government acts, non-
sectarian, obligatory, and free—a cardinal doctrine of
our own great democracy, to which we are committed __
by every principle of sound Americanism. There must
be absolute religious liberty, for tyranny and intolerance
are as abhorrent in matters intellectual and spiritual as
in matters political and material; and more and more
we must all realize that conduct is of infinitely greater __
importance than dogma. But no democracy can afford —
to overlook the vital importance of the ethical and spir-
itual, the truly religious, element in life; and in practice
the average good man grows clearly to understand this,
and to express the need in concrete form by saying that
no community can make much headway if it does not
contain both a church and a school.

We took breakfast — the eleven -o’clock Brazilian
breakfast—on Colonel Rondon’s boat. Caymans were
becoming more plentiful. The ugly brutes lay on the
sand-flats and mud-banks like logs, always with the head
taised, sometimes with the jaws open. They are often
dangerous to domestic animals, and are always destruc-
tive to fish, and it is good to shoot them. I killed half
a dozen, and missed nearly as many more—a throbbing
boat does not improve one’s aim. We passed forests
of palms that extended for leagues, and vast marshy
meadows, where storks, herons, and ibis were gathered,
with flocks of cormorants and darters on the sand-bars,

60 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

and stilts, skimmers, and clouds of beautiful swaying
terns in the foreground. About noon we passed the
highest point which the old Spanish conquistadores and
explorers, Irala and Ayolas, had reached in the course
of their marvellous journeys in the first half of the
sixteenth century—at a time when there was not a set-
tlement in what is now the United States, and when
hardly a single English sea captain had ventured so
much as to cross the Atlantic.

By the following day the country on the east bank
had become a vast marshy plain dotted here and there
by tree-clad patches of higher land. The morning was
rainy; a contrast to the fine weather we had hitherto
encountered. We passed wood-yards and cattle-ranches.
At one of the latter the owner, an Argentine of Irish
parentage, who still spoke English with the accent of
the land of his parents’ nativity, remarked that this was
the first time the American flag had been seen on the
upper Paraguay; for our gunboat carried it at the mast-
head. Early in the afternoon, having reached the part
where both banks of the river were Brazilian territory,
we came to the old colonial Portuguese fort of Coimbra.
It stands where two steep hills rise, one on either side
of the river, and it guards the water-gorge between them.
It was captured by the Paraguayans in the war of nearly
half a century ago. Some modern guns have been
mounted, and there is a garrison of Brazilian troops.
The white fort is perched on the hillside, where it clings
and rises, terrace above terrace, with bastion and para-
pet and crenellated wall. At the foot of the hill, on the
riverine plain, stretches the old-time village with its roofs

Up the Paraguay 61

of palm. In the village dwell several hundred souls,
almost entirely the officers and soldiers and their families.
There is one long street. The one-story, daub-and-wattle
houses have low eaves and steep sloping roofs of palm-
leaves or of split palm-trunks. Under one or two old
but small trees there are rude benches; and for a part
of the length of the street there is a rough stone side-
walk. A little graveyard, some of the tombs very old,
stands at one end. As we passed down the street the
wives and the swarming children of the garrison were at
the doors and windows; there were women and girls
with skins as fair as any in the northland, and others
that were predominantly negro. Most were of interven-
ing shades. All this was paralleled among the men; and
the fusion of the colors was going on steadily.

Around the village black vultures were gathered. Not
long before reaching it we passed some rounded green
trees, their tops covered with the showy wood-ibis; at the
same time we saw behind them, farther inland, other trees
crowded with the more delicate forms of the shining
white egrets.

The river now widened so that in places it looked
like a long lake; it wound in every direction through the
endless marshy plain, whose surface was broken here
and there by low mountains. The splendor of the sun-
set I never saw surpassed. We were steaming east
toward clouds of storm. The river ran, a broad highway
of molten gold, into the flaming sky; the far-off moun-
tains loomed purple across the marshes; belts of rich
green, the river banks stood out on either side against
the rose-hues of the rippling water; in front, as we

62 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

forged steadily onward, hung the tropic night, dim and
vast.

On December 15 we reached Corumba. For three
or four miles before it is reached the west bank, on
which it stands, becomes high rocky ground, falling away
into cliffs. The country roundabout was evidently well
peopled. We saw gauchos, cattle-herders—the equiva-
lent of our own cowboys—riding along the bank.
Women were washing clothes, and their naked children
bathing, on the shore; we were told that caymans and
piranhas rarely ventured near a place where so much
was going on, and that accidents generally occurred in
ponds or lonely stretches of the river. Several steamers
came out to meet us, and accompanied us for a dozen
miles, with bands playing and the passengers cheering,
just as if we were nearing some town on the Hudson.

Corumba is on a steep hillside, with wide, roughly
paved streets, some of them lined with beautiful trees
that bear scarlet flowers, and with well-built houses,
most of them of one story, some of two or three stories.
We were greeted with a reception by the municipal coun-
cil, and were given a state dinner. The hotel, kept by
an Italian, was as comfortable as possible—stone floors,
high ceilings, big windows and doors, a cool, open court-
yard, and a shower-bath. Of course Corumba is still a
frontier town. The vehicles are ox-carts and mule-carts;
there are no carriages; and oxen as well as mules are
used for riding. The water comes from a big central
well; around it the water-carts gather, and their con-
tents are then peddled around at the different houses.
The families showed the mixture of races characteristic

Up the Paraguay 63

of Brazil; one mother, after the children had been pho-
tographed in their ordinary costume, begged that we re-
turn and take them in their Sunday clothes, which. was
accordingly done. In a year the railway from Rio will
reach Corumba; and then this city, and the country
roundabout, will see much development.

At this point we rejoined the rest of the party, and
very glad we were to see them. Cherrie and Miller had
already collected some eight hundred specimens of mam-
mals and birds.

CHAPTER III

A JAGUAR-HUNT ON THE TAQUARY

"Te morning after our arrival at Corumba I
asked Colonel Rondon to inspect our outfit; for
his experience of what is necessary in tropical
travelling has been gained through a quarter of a cen-
tury of arduous exploration in the wilderness. It was
Fiala who had assembled our food-tents, cooking-uten-
sils, and supplies of all kinds, and he and Sigg, during
their stay in Corumba, had been putting everything in
shape for our start. Colonel Rondon at the end of his
inspection said he had nothing whatever to suggest; that
it was extraordinary that Fiala, without personal knowl-
edge of the tropics, could have gathered the things most
necessary, with the minimum of bulk and maximum of
usefulness.

Miller had made a special study of the piranhas,
which swarmed at one of the camps he and Cherrie had
made in the Chaco. So numerous were they that the
members of the party had to be exceedingly careful in
dipping up water. Miller did not find that they were
catinibals toward their own kind; they were “cannibals”
only in the sense of eating the flesh of men. When dead
piranhas, and even when mortally injured piranhas, with
the blood flowing, were thrown among the ravenous liv-
ing, they were left unmolested. Moreover, it was Miller’s

64

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 65

experience, the direct contrary of which we had been
told, that splashing and a commotion in the water at-
tracted the piranhas, whereas they rarely attacked any-
thing that was motionless unless it was bloody. Dead
birds and mammals, thrown whole and unskinned into
the water were permitted to float off unmolested, whereas
the skinned carcass of a good-sized monkey was at once
seized, pulled under the water, and completely devoured
by the blood-crazy fish. A man who had dropped some-
thing of value waded in after it to above the knees, but
went very slowly and quietly, avoiding every possibility
of disturbance, and not venturing to put his hands into
the water. But nobody could bathe, and even the slight-
est disturbance in the water, such as that made by scrub-
bing the hands vigorously with soap, immediately at-
tracted the attention of the savage little creatures, who
darted to the place, evidently hoping to find some ani-
mal in difficulties. Once, while Miller and some Indians
were attempting to launch a boat, and were making a
great commotion in the water, a piranha attacked a naked
Indian who belonged to the party and mutilated him as
he struggled and splashed, waist-deep in the stream.
Men not making a splashing and struggling are rarely
attacked ; but if one is attacked by any chance, the blood
in the water maddens the piranhas, and they assail the
man with frightful ferocity.

At Corumba the weather was hot. In the patio of
the comfortable little hotel we heard the cicadas; but I
did not hear the extraordinary screaming whistle of the
locomotive cicada, which I had heard in the gardens of
the house in which I stayed at Asuncion. This was as

66 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

remarkable a sound as any animal sound to which I have
listened, except only the batrachian-like wailing of the
tree hyrax in East Africa; and like the East African
mammal this South American insect has a voice, or
rather utters a sound which, so far ‘as it resembles any
other animal sound, at the beginning remotely suggests
batrachian affinities. The locomotive-whistle part of the
utterance, however, resembles nothing so much as a small
steam siren; when first heard it seems impossible that it
can be produced by an insect.

On December 17 Colonel Rondon and several mem-
bers of our party started on a shallow river steamer for
the ranch of Senhor de Barros, “Las Palmeiras,” on the
Rio Taquary. We went down the Paraguay for a few
miles, and then up the Taquary. It was a beautiful trip.
The shallow river—we were aground several times—
wound through a vast, marshy plain, with occasional
spots of higher land on which trees grew. There were
many water-birds. Darters swarmed. But the conspicu-
ous and attractive bird was the stately jabiru stork.
Flocks of these storks whitened the marshes and lined
the river banks. They were not shy, for such big birds;
before flying they had to run a few paces and then
launch themselves on the air. Once, at noon, a couple
soared round overhead in wide rings, rising higher and
higher. On another occasion, late in the day, a flock
passed by, gleaming white with black points in the long
afternoon lights, and with them were spoonbills, show-
ing rosy amid their snowy companions. Caymans, al-
ways called jacarés, swarmed; and we killed scores of
the noxious creatures. They were singularly indifferent

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 67

to our approach and to the sound of the shots. Some-
times they ran into the water erect on their legs, looking
like miniatures of the monsters of the prime. One
showed by its behavior how little an ordinary shot pains
or affects these dull-nerved, cold-blooded creatures. As
it lay on a sand-bank, it was hit with a long 22 bullet.
It slid into the water but found itself in the midst of a
school of fish. It at once forgot everything except its
greedy appetite, and began catching the fish. It seized
fish after fish, holding its head above water as soon as
its jaws had closed on a fish; and a second bullet killed
it. Some of the crocodiles when shot performed most
extraordinary antics. Our weapons, by the way, were
good, except Miller’s shotgun. The outfit furnished by
the American museum was excellent—except in guns and
cartridges; this gun was so bad that Miller had to use
Fiala’s gun or else my Fox 12-bore.

In the late afternoon we secured a more interesting
creature than the jacarés. Kermit had charge of two
hounds which we owed to the courtesy of one of our
Argentine friends. They were biggish, nondescript ani-
mals, obviously good fighters, and they speedily devel-
oped the utmost affection for all the members of the
expedition, but especially for Kermit, who took care of
them. One we named “Shenzi,” the name given the wild
bush natives by the Swahili, the semicivilized African
porters. He was good-natured, rough, and stupid—
hence his name. The other was called by a native name,
“Trigueiro.” The chance now came to try them. We
were steaming between long stretches of coarse grass,
about three feet high, when we spied from the deck a

68 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

black object, very conspicuous against the vivid green.
It was a giant ant-eater, or tamandua bandeira, one of
the most extraordinary creatures of the latter-day world.
It is about the size of a rather small black bear. It has
a very long, narrow, toothless snout, with a tongue it
can project a couple of feet; it is covered with coarse,
black hair, save for a couple of white stripes; it has a
long, bushy tail and very powerful claws on its fore feet.
It walks on the sides of its fore feet with these claws
curved in under the foot. The claws are used in digging
out ant-hills; but the beast has courage, and in a grapple
is a rather unpleasant enemy, in spite of its toothless
mouth, for it can strike a formidable blow with these
claws. It sometimes hugs a foe, gripping him tight; but
its ordinary method of defending itself is to strike with
its long, stout, curved claws, which, driven by its mus-
cular forearm, can rip open man or beast. Several of
our companions had had dogs killed by these ant-eaters;
and we came across one man with a very ugly scar down
his back, where he had been hit by one, which charged
him when he came up to kill it at close quarters.

As soon as we saw the giant tamandua we pushed off
in a rowboat, and landed only a couple of hundred yards
distant from our clumsy quarry. The tamandua through-
out most of its habitat rarely leaves the forest, and it is
a helpless animal in the open plain. The two dogs ran
ahead, followed by Colonel Rondon and Kermit, with
me behind carrying the rifle. In a minute or two the
hounds overtook the cantering, shuffling creature, and
promptly began a fight with it; the combatants were so
mixed up that I had to wait another minute or so before

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 69

I could fire without risk of hitting a dog. We carried
our prize back to the bank and hoisted it aboard the
steamer. The sun was just about to set, behind dim
mountains, many miles distant across the marsh.

Soon afterward we reached one of the outstations of
the huge ranch we were about to visit, and hauled up
alongside the bank for the night. There was a landing-
place, and sheds and corrals. Several of the peons or
gauchos had come to meet us. After dark they kindled
fires, and sat beside them singing songs in a strange
minor key and strumming guitars. The red firelight
flickered over their wild figures as they squatted away
from the blaze, where the light and the shadow met. It
was still and hot. There were mosquitoes, of course,
and other insects of all kinds swarmed round every light;
but the steamboat was comfortable, and we passed a
pleasant night.

At sunrise we were off for the “fazenda,” the ranch
of M. de Barros. The baggage went in an ox-cart—
which had to make two trips, so that all of my belongings
reached the ranch a day later than I did. We rode small,
tough ranch horses. The distance was some twenty
miles. The whole country was marsh, varied by stretches
of higher ground; and, although these stretches rose only
three or four feet above the marsh, they were covered
with thick jungle, largely palmetto scrub, or else with
open palm forest. For three or four miles we splashed
through the marsh, now and then crossing boggy pools
where the little horses labored hard not to mire down.
Our dusky guide was clad in a shirt, trousers, and
fringed leather apron, and wore spurs on his bare feet;

70 «Through the Brazilian Wilderness

he had a rope for a bridle, and two or three toes of each
foot were thrust into little iron stirrups.

The pools in the marsh were drying. They were
filled with fish, most of them dead or dying; and the
birds had gathered to the banquet. The most notable
dinner guests were the great jabiru storks; the stately
creatures dotted the marsh. But ibis and herons abound-
ed; the former uttered queer, querulous cries when they
discovered our presence. The spurred lapwings were as
noisy as they always are. The ibis and plover did not
pay any heed to the fish; but the black carrion vultures
feasted on them in the mud; and in the pools that were
not dry small alligators, the jacaré-tinga, were feasting
also. In many places the stench from the dead fish was
unpleasant.

Then for miles we rode through a beautiful open
forest of tall, slender caranda palms, with other trees
scattered among them. Green parakeets with black
heads chattered as they flew; noisy green and red parrots
climbed among the palms; and huge macaws, some en-
tirely blue, others almost entirely red, screamed loudly
as they perched in the trees or took wing at our approach.
If one was wounded its cries kept its companions circling
around overhead. The naturalists found the bird fauna
totally different from that which they had been collecting
in the hill country near Corumba, seventy or eighty miles
distant ; and birds swarmed, both species and individuals.
South America has the most extensive and most varied
avifauna of all the continents. On the other hand, its
mammalian fauna, although very interesting, is rather
poor in number of species and individuals and in the

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 71

size of the beasts. It possesses more mammals that are
unique and distinctive in type than does any other con-
tinent save Australia; and they are of higher and much
more varied types than in Australia. But there is noth-
ing approaching the majesty, beauty, and swarming mass
of the great mammalian life of Africa and, in a less
degree, of tropical Asia; indeed, it does not even ap-
proach the similar mammalian life of North America
and northern Eurasia, poor though this is compared
with the seething vitality of tropical life in the Old
World. During a geologically recent period, a period
extending into that which saw man spread over the world
in substantially the physical and cultural stage of many
existing savages, South America possessed a varied and
striking fauna of enormous beasts—sabre-tooth tigers,
huge lions, mastodons, horses of many kinds, camel-like
pachyderms, giant ground-sloths, mylodons the size of
the rhinoceros, and many, many other strange and won-
derful creatures. From some cause, concerning the
nature of which we cannot at present even hazard a
guess, this vast and giant fauna vanished completely, the
tremendous catastrophe (the duration of which is un-
known) not being consummated until within a few thou-
sand or a few score thousand years. When the white
man reached South America he found the same weak
and impoverished mammalian fauna that exists practi-
cally unchanged to-day. Elsewhere civilized man has
been even more destructive than his very destructive un-
civilized brothers of the magnificent mammalian life of
the wilderness; for ages he has been rooting out the
higher forms of beast life in Europe, Asia, and North

72 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

Africa; and in our own day he has repeated the feat,
on a very large scale, in the rest of Africa and in North
America. But in South America, although he is in places
responsible for the wanton slaughter of the most inter-
esting and the largest, or the most beautiful, birds, his
advent has meant a positive enrichment of the wild mam-
malian fauna. None of the native grass-eating mammals,
the graminivores, approach in size and beauty the herds
of wild or half-wild cattle and horses, or so add to the
interest of the landscape. There is every reason why the
good people of South America should waken, as we of
North America, very late in the day, are beginning to
waken, and as the peoples of northern Europe — not
southern Europe — have already partially wakened, to
the duty of preserving from impoverishment and ex-
tinction the wild life which is an asset of such interest
and value in our several lands; but the case against civil-
ized man in this matter is grewsomely heavy anyhow,
when the plain truth is told, and it is harmed by ex-
aggeration.

After five or six hours’ travelling through this coun-
try of marsh and of palm forest we reached the ranch
for which we were heading. In the neighborhood stood
giant fig-trees, singly or in groups, with dense, dark-
green foliage. Ponds, overgrown with water-plants, lay
about; wet meadow, and drier pastureland, open or
dotted with palms and varied with tree jungle, stretched
for many miles on every hand. There are some thirty
thousand head of cattle on the ranch, besides herds of
horses and droves of swine, and a few flocks of sheep
and goats. The home buildings of the ranch stood ina

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 73

quadrangle, surrounded by a fence or low stockade. One
end of the quadrangle was formed by the ranch-house
itself, one story high, with whitewashed walls and red-
tiled roof. Inside, the rooms were bare, with clean,
whitewashed walls and palm-trunk rafters. There were
solid wooden shutters on the unglazed windows. We
slept in hammocks or on cots, and we feasted royally on
delicious native Brazilian dishes. On another side of
the quadrangle stood another long, low white building
with a red-tiled roof ; this held the kitchen and the living-
rooms of the upper-grade peons, the headmen, the cook,
and jaguar-hunters, with their families: dark-skinned
men, their wives showing varied strains of white, In-
dian, and negro blood. The children tumbled merrily
in the dust, and were fondly tended by their mothers.
Opposite the kitchen stood a row of buildings, some
whitewashed daub and wattle, with tin roofs, others of
erect palm-logs with palm-leaf thatch. These were the
saddle-room, storehouse, chicken-house, and stable. The
chicken-house was allotted to Kermit and Miller for the
preparation of the specimens; and there they worked in-
dustriously. With a big skin, like that of the giant ant-
eater, they had to squat on the ground; while the duck-
lings and wee chickens scuffled not only round the skin
but all over it, grabbing the shreds and scraps of meat
and catching flies. The fourth end of the quadrangle
was formed by a corral and a big wooden scaffolding on
which hung hides and strips of drying meat. Extraor-
dinary to relate, there were no mosquitoes at the ranch;
why I cannot say, as they ought to swarm in these vast
“pantanals,” or swamps. Therefore, in spite of the heat,

74 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

it was very pleasant. Near by stood other buildings:
sheds, and thatched huts of palm-logs in which the or-
dinary peons lived, and big corrals. In the quadrangle
were flamboyant trees, with their masses of brilliant red
flowers and delicately cut, vivid-green foliage. Noisy
oven-birds haunted these trees. In a high palm in the
garden a family of green parakeets had taken up their
abode and were preparing to build nests. They chat-
tered incessantly both when they flew and when they sat
or crawled among the branches. Ibis and plover, crying
and wailing, passed immediately overhead. Jacanas fre-
quented the ponds near by; the peons, with a familiarity
which to us seems sacrilegious, but to them was entirely
inoffensive and matter of course, called them “the Jesus
Christ birds,” because they walked on the water. There
was a wealth of strange bird life in the neighborhood.
There were large papyrus-marshes, the papyrus not be-
ing a fifth, perhaps not a tenth, as high as in Africa.
In these swamps were many blackbirds. Some uttered
notes that reminded me of our own redwings. Others,
with crimson heads and necks and thighs, fairly blazed;
often a dozen sat together on a swaying papyrus-stem
which their weight bent over. There were all kinds of
extraordinary bird’s-nests in the trees. There is still
need for the work of the collector in South America.
But I believe that already, so far as birds are concerned,
there is infinitely more need for the work of the careful
observer, who to the power of appreciation and observa-
tion adds the power of vivid, truthful, and interesting
narration—which means, as scientists no less than his-
torians should note, that training in the writing of good

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 75

English is indispensable to any learned man who expects
to make his learning count for what it ought to count
in the effect on his fellow men. The outdoor naturalist,
the faunal naturalist, who devotes himself primarily to
a study of the habits and of the life-histories of birds,
beasts, fish, and reptiles, and who can portray truthfully
and vividly what he has seen, could do work of more
usefulness than any mere collector, in this upper Para-
guay country. The work of the collector is indispensa-
ble; but it is only a small part of the work that ought to
be done; and after collecting has reached a certain point
the work of the field observer with the gift for recording
what he has seen becomes of far more importance.

The long days spent riding through the swamp, the
“pantanal,” were pleasant and interesting. Several times
we saw the tamandua bandeira, the giant ant-bear. Ker-
mit shot one, because the naturalists eagerly wished for
a second specimen; afterward we were relieved of all
necessity to molest the strange, out-of-date creatures. It
was a surprise to us to find them habitually frequenting
the open marsh. They were always on muddy ground,
and in the papyrus-swamp we found them in several
inches of water. The stomach is thick-walled, like a
gizzard; the stomachs of those we shot contained adult
and larval ants, chiefly termites, together with plenty of
black mould and fragments of leaves, both green and
dry. Doubtless the earth and the vegetable matter had
merely been taken incidentally, adhering to the viscid
tongue when it was thrust into the ant masses. Out in
the open marsh the tamandua could neither avoid obser-
vation, nor fight effectively, nor make good its escape

76 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

by flight. It was curious to see one lumbering off at a
rocking canter, the big bushy tail held aloft. One, while
fighting the dogs, suddenly threw itself on its back, evi-
dently hoping to grasp a dog with its paws; and it now
and then reared, in order to strike at its assailants. In
one patch of thick jungle we saw a black howler monkey
sitting motionless in a tree top. We also saw the swamp-
deer, about the size of our blacktail. It is a real swamp
animal, for we found it often in the papyrus-swamps,
and out in the open marsh, knee-deep in the water, among
the aquatic plants.

The tough little horses bore us well through the
marsh. Often in crossing bayous and ponds the water
rose almost to their backs; but they splashed and waded
and if necessary swam through. The dogs were a wild- *
looking set. Some were of distinctly wolfish appearance.
These, we were assured, were descended in part from
the big red wolf of the neighborhood, a tall, lank animal,
with much smaller teeth than a big northern wolf. The
domestic dog is undoubtedly descended from at least a
dozen different species of wild dogs, wolves, and jackals,
some of them probably belonging to what we style
different genera. The degree of fecundity or lack of
fecundity between different species varies in extraordi-
nary and inexplicable fashion in different families of
mammals. In the horse family, for instance, the species
are not fertile inter se; whereas among the oxen, species
seemingly at least as widely separated as the horse, ass,
and zebra—species such as the domestic ox, bison, yak,
and gaur—breed freely together and their offspring are
fertile; the lion and tiger also breed together, and pro-

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 77

duce offspring which will breed with either parent stock;
and tame dogs in different quarters of the world, al-
though all of them fertile inter se, are in many cases
obviously blood kin to the neighboring wild, wolf-like
or jackal-like creatures which are specifically, and pos-
sibly even generically, distinct from one another. The
big red wolf of the South American plains is not closely
related to the northern wolves; and it was to me unex-
pected to find it interbreeding with ordinary domestic
dogs.

In the evenings after dinner we sat in the bare ranch
dining-room, or out under the trees in the hot darkness,
and talked of many things: natural history with the
naturalists, and all kinds of other subjects both with
them and with our Brazilian friends. Colonel Rondon
is not simply “an officer and a gentleman” in the sense
that is honorably true of the best army officers in every
good military service. He is also a peculiarly hardy and
competent explorer, a good field naturalist and scientific
man, a student and a philosopher. With him the con-
versation ranged from jaguar-hunting and the perils of
exploration in the “matto grosso,” the great wilderness,
to Indian anthropology, to the dangers of a purely ma-
terialistic industrial civilization, and to Positivist moral-
ity. The colonel’s Positivism was in very fact to him a
religion of humanity, a creed which bade him be just and
kindly and useful to his fellow men, to live his life
bravely, and no less bravely to face death, without refer-
ence to what he believed, or did not believe, or to what
the unknown hereafter might hold for him.

The native hunters who accompanied us were swarthy

78 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

men of mixed blood. They were barefooted and scantily
clad, and each carried a long, clumsy spear and a keen
machete, in the use of which he was an expert. Now
and then, in thick jungle, we had to cut out a path, and
it was interesting to see one of them, although cumbered
by his unwieldy spear, handling his half-broken little
horse with complete ease while he hacked at limbs and
branches. Of the two ordinarily with us one was much
the younger; and whenever we came to an unusually
doubtful-looking ford or piece of boggy ground the elder
man always sent the younger one on and sat on the bank
until he saw what befell the experimenter. In that rather
preposterous book of our youth, the “Swiss Family Rob-
inson,”’ mention is made of a tame monkey called Nips,
which was used to test all edible-looking things as to the
healthfulness of which the adventurers felt doubtful;
and because of the obvious resemblance of function we
christened this younger hunter Nips. Our guides were
not only hunters but cattle-herders. The coarse dead
grass is burned to make room for the green young grass
on which the cattle thrive. Every now and then one of
the men, as he rode ahead of us, without leaving the
saddle, would drop a lighted match into a tussock of tall
dead blades; and even as we who were behind rode by
tongues of hot flame would be shooting up and a local
prairie fire would have started.

Kermit took Nips off with him for a solitary hunt
one day. He shot two of the big marsh-deer, a buck
and a doe, and preserved them as museum specimens.
They were in the papyrus growth, but their stomachs
contained only the fine marsh-grass which grows in the

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 79

water and on the land along the edges of the swamps;
the papyrus was used only for cover, not for food. The
buck had two big scent-glands beside the nostrils; in the
doe these were rudimentary. On this day Kermit also
came across a herd of the big, fierce white-lipped peccary ;
at the sound of their grunting Nips promptly spurred his
horse and took to his heels, explaining that the peccaries
would charge them, hamstring the horses, and kill the
riders. Kermit went into the jungle after the truculent
little wild hogs on foot and followed them for an hour,
but never was able to catch sight of them.

In the afternoon of this same day one of the jaguar-
hunters—merely ranch hands, who knew something of
the chase of the jaguar—who had been searching for
tracks, rode in with the information that he had found
fresh sign at a spot in the swamp about nine miles dis-
tant. Next morning we rose at two, and had started on
our jaguar-hunt at three. Colonel Rondon, Kermit, and
I, with the two trailers or jaguar-hunters, made up the
party, each on a weedy, undersized marsh pony, accus-
tomed to traversing the vast stretches of morass; and we
were accompanied by a brown boy, with saddle-bags
holding our lunch, who rode a long-horned trotting steer
which he managed by a string through its nostril and
lip. The two trailers carried each a long, clumsy spear.
We had a rather poor pack. Besides our own two dogs,
neither of which was used to jaguar-hunting, there were
the ranch dogs, which were well-nigh worthless, and
then two jaguar hounds borrowed for the occasion from
a ranch six or eight leagues distant. These were the
only hounds on which we could place any trust, and they

80 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

were led in leashes by the two trailers. One was a white
bitch, the other, the best one we had, was a gelded black
dog. They were lean, half-starved creatures with prick
ears and a look of furtive wildness.

As our shabby little horses shuffled away from the
ranch-house the stars were brilliant and the Southern
Cross hung well up in the heavens, tilted to the right.
The landscape was spectral in the light of the waning
moon. At the first shallow ford, as horses and dogs
splashed across, an alligator, the jacaré-tinga, some five
feet long, floated unconcernedly among the splashing
hoofs and paws; evidently at night it did not fear us.
Hour after hour we shogged along. Then the night grew
ghostly with the first dim gray of the dawn. The sky
had become overcast. The sun rose red and angry
through broken clouds; his disk flamed behind the tall,
slender columns of the palms, and lit the waste fields of
papyrus. The black monkeys howled mournfully. The
birds awoke. Macaws, parrots, parakeets screamed at us
and chattered at us as we rode by. Ibis called with wail-
ing voices, and the plovers shrieked as they wheeled in
the air. We waded across bayous and ponds, where
white lilies floated on the water and thronging lilac-
flowers splashed the green marsh with color.

At last, on the edge of a patch of jungle, in wet
ground, we came on fresh jaguar tracks. Both the
jaguar hounds challenged the sign. They were un-
leashed and galloped along the trail, while the other dogs
noisily accompanied them. The hunt led right through
the marsh. Evidently the jaguar had not the least dis-
taste for water. Probably it had been hunting for capy-

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 81:

baras or tapirs, and it had gone straight through ponds
and long, winding, narrow ditches or bayous, where it
must now and then have had to swim for a stroke or
two. It had also wandered through the island-like
stretches of tree-covered land, the trees at this point be-
ing mostly palms and tarumans; the taruman is almost
as big as a live-oak, with glossy foliage and a fruit like
an olive. The pace quickened, the motley pack burst into
yelling and howling; and then a sudden quickening of
the note showed that the game had either climbed a tree
or turned to bay in a thicket. The former proved to be
the case. The dogs had entered a patch of tall tree
jungle, and as we cantered up through the marsh we
saw the jaguar high among the forked limbs of a taru-
man tree. It was a beautiful picture—the spotted coat
of the big, lithe, formidable cat fairly shone as it snarled
defiance at the pack below. I did not trust the pack;
the dogs were not stanch, and if the jaguar came down
and started I feared we might lose it. So I fired at once,
froma distance of seventy yards. I was using my favor-
ite rifle, the little Springfield with which I have killed
most kinds of African game, from the lion and elephant
down; the bullets were the sharp, pointed kind, with the
end of naked lead. At the shot the jaguar fell like a sack
of sand through the branches, and although it staggered
to its feet it went but a score of yards before it sank
down, and when I came up it was dead under the palms,
with three or four of the bolder dogs riving at it.

The jaguar is the king of South American game,
ranking on an equality with the noblest beasts of the
chase of North America, and behind only the huge and

82 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

fierce creatures which stand at the head of the big game
of Africa and Asia. This one was an adult female. It
was heavier and more powerful than a full-grown male
cougar, or African panther or leopard. It was a big,
powerfully built creature, giving the same effect of
strength that a tiger or lion does, and that the lithe leop-
ards and pumas do not. Its flesh, by the way, proved
good eating, when we had it for supper, although it was
not cooked in the way it ought to have been. I tried it
because I had found cougars such good eating; I have
always regretted that in Africa I did not try lion’s flesh,
which I am sure must be excellent.

Next day came Kermit’s turn. We had the miscel-
laneous pack with us, all much enjoying themselves; but,
although they could help in a jaguar-hunt to the extent
of giving tongue and following the chase for half a mile,
cowing the quarry by their clamor, they were not suffi-
ciently stanch to be of use if there was any difficulty in
the hunt. The only two dogs we could trust were the
two borrowed jaguar hounds, This was the black dog’s
day. About ten in the morning we came to a long, deep,
winding bayou. On the opposite bank stood a capybara,
looking like a blunt-nosed pig, its wet hide shining black.
I killed it, and it slid into the water. Then I found that
the bayou extended for a mile or two in each direction,
and the two hunter-guides said they did not wish to swim
across for fear of the piranhas. Just at this moment we
came across fresh jaguar tracks. It was hot, we had
been travelling for five hours, and the dogs were much
exhausted. The black hound in particular was nearly
done up, for he had been led in a leash by one of the

The brown boy on the long-horned trotting steer, which he managed by a
string through its nostril and lip.

From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt.

Colonel Roosevelt and the first jaguar.

From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt,

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 83

horsemen. He lay flat on the ground, panting, unable
to catch the scent. Kermit threw water over him, and
when he was thoroughly drenched and freshened, thrust
his nose into the jaguar’s footprints. The game old
hound at once and eagerly responded. As he snuffed
the scent he challenged loudly, while still lying down.
Then he staggered to his feet and started on the trail,
going stronger with every leap. Evidently the big cat
was not far distant. Soon we found where it had swum
across the bayou. Piranhas or no piranhas, we now in-
tended to get across; and we tried to force our horses
in at what seemed a likely spot. The matted growth of
water-plants, with their leathery, slippery stems, formed
an unpleasant barrier, as the water was swimming-deep
for the horses. The latter were very unwilling to at-
tempt the passage. Kermit finally forced his horse
through the tangled mass, swimming, plunging, and
struggling. He left a lane of clear water, through which
we swam after him. The dogs splashed and swam be-
hind us. On the other bank they struck the fresh trail
and followed it ata run. It led into a long belt of tim-
ber, chiefly composed of low-growing nacury palms, with
long, drooping, many-fronded branches. In silhouette
they suggest coarse bamboos; the nuts hang in big clus-
ters and look like bunches of small, unripe bananas.
Among the lower palms were scattered some big ordi-
nary trees. We cantered along outside the timber belt,
listening to the dogs within; and in a moment a burst
of yelling clamor from the pack told that the jaguar was
afoot. These few minutes are the really exciting mo-
ments in the chase, with hounds, of any big cat that will

84 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

tree. The furious baying of the pack, the shouts and
cheers of encouragement from the galloping horsemen,
the wilderness surroundings, the knowledge of what the
quarry is—all combine to make the moment one of fierce
and thrilling excitement. Besides, in this case there was
the possibility the jaguar might come to bay on the
ground, in which event there would be a slight element
of risk, as it might need straight shooting to stop a
charge. However, about as soon as the long-drawn
howling and eager yelping showed that the jaguar had
been overtaken, we saw him, a huge male, up in the
branches of a great fig-tree. A bullet behind the shoul-
der, from Kermit’s 405 Winchester, brought him dead
to the ground. He was heavier than the very big male
horse-killing cougar I shot in Colorado, whose skull Hart
Merriam reported as the biggest he had ever seen; he
was very nearly double the weight of any of the male
African leopards we shot; he was nearly or quite the
weight of the smallest of the adult African lionesses
we shot while in Africa. He had the big bones, the
stout frame, and the heavy muscular build of a small
lion; he was not lithe and slender and long like a cougar’
or leopard; the tail, as with all jaguars, was short, while
the girth of the body was great; his coat was beautiful,
with a satiny gloss, and the dark-brown spots on the gold
of his back, head, and sides were hardly as conspicuous
as the black of the equally well-marked spots against his
white belly.

This was a well-known jaguar. He had occasionally
indulged in cattle-killing; on one occasion during the
floods he had taken up his abode near the ranch-house

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 85

and had killed a couple of cows and a young steer. The
hunters had followed him, but he had made his escape,
and for the time being had abandoned the neighborhood.
In these marshes each jaguar had a wide irregular range
and travelled a good deal, perhaps only passing a day or
two in a given locality, perhaps spending a week where
game was plentiful. Jaguars love the water. They
drink greedily and swim freely. In this country they
rambled through the night across the marshes and
prowled along the edges of the ponds and bayous, catch-
ing the capybaras and the caymans; for these small pond
caymans, the jacaré-tinga, form part of their habitual
food, and a big jaguar when hungry will attack and kill
large caymans and crocodiles if he can get them a few
yards from the water. On these marshes the jaguars
also followed the peccary herds; it is said that they al-
ways strike the hindmost of a band of the fierce little
wild pigs. Elsewhere they often prey on the tapir. If
in timber, however, the jaguar must kill it at once, for
the squat, thick-skinned, wedge-shaped tapir has no re-
spect for timber, as Colonel Rondon phrased it, and
rushes with such blind, headlong speed through and
among branches and trunks that if not immediately
killed it brushes the jaguar off, the claws leaving long
raking scars in the tough hide. Cattle are often killed.
The jaguar will not meddle with a big bull; and is cau-
tious about attacking a herd accompanied by a bull; but
it will at times, where wild game is scarce, kill every
other domestic animal. It is a thirsty brute, and if it
kills far from water will often drag its victim a long
distance toward a pond or stream; Colonel Rondon had

86 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

once come across a horse which a jaguar had thus killed
and dragged for over a mile. Jaguars also stalk and kill
the deer; in this neighborhood they seemed to be less
habitual deer-hunters than the cougars; whether this is
generally the case I cannot say. They have been known
to pounce on and devour good-sized anacondas.

In this particular neighborhood the ordinary jaguars
molested the cattle and horses hardly at all except now
and then to kill calves. It was only occasionally that
under special circumstances some old male took to cattle-
killing. There were plenty of capybaras and deer, and
evidently the big spotted cats preferred the easier prey
when it was available; exactly as in East Africa we
found the lions living almost exclusively on zebra and
antelope, and not molesting the buffalo and domestic cat-
tle, which in other parts of Africa furnish their habitual
prey. In some other neighborhoods, not far distant, our
hosts informed us that the jaguars lived almost ex-
clusively on horses and cattle. They also told us that
the cougars had the same habits as the jaguars except
that they did not prey on such big animals. The cougars
on this ranch never molested the foals, a fact which as-
tonished me, as in the Rockies they are the worst enemies
of foals. It was interesting to find that my hosts, and
the mixed-blood hunters and ranch workers, combined
special knowledge of many of the habits of these big cats
with a curious ignorance of other matters concerning
them and a readiness to believe fables about them. This
was precisely what I had found to be the case with the
old-time North American hunters in discussing the puma,
bear, and wolf, and with the English and Boer hunters

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 87

of Africa when they spoke of the lion and rhinoceros.
Until the habit of scientific accuracy in observation and
record is achieved and until specimens are preserved and
carefully compared, entirely truthful men, at home in
the wilderness, will whole-heartedly accept, and repeat as
matters of gospel faith, theories which split the grizzly
and black bears of each locality in the United States, and
the lions and black rhinos of South Africa, or the jaguars
and pumas of any portion of South America, into sev-
eral different species, all with widely different habits.
They will, moreover, describe these imaginary habits
with such sincerity and minuteness that they deceive
most listeners; and the result sometimes is that an other-
wise good naturalist will perpetuate these fables, as
Hudson did when he wrote of the puma. Hudson was
a capital observer and writer when he dealt with the
ordinary birds and mammals of the well-settled districts
near Buenos Aires and at the mouth of the Rio Negro;
but he knew nothing of the wilderness. This is no re-
flection on him; his books are great favorites of mine,
and are to a large degree models of what such books
should be; I only wish that there were hundreds of such
writers and observers who would give us similar books
for all parts of America. But it is a mistake to accept
him as an authority on that concerning which he was
ignorant.

An interesting incident, occurred on the day we killed
our first jaguar. We took our lunch beside a small but
deep and obviously permanent pond. I went to the edge
to dip up some water, and something growled or bellowed
at me only a few feet away. It was a jacaré-tinga or

88 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

small cayman about five feet long. I paid no heed to it
at the moment. But shortly afterward when our horses
went down to drink it threatened them and frightened
them; and then Colonel Rondon and Kermit called me
to watch it. It lay on the surface of the water only a
few feet distant from us and threatened us; we threw
cakes of mud at it, whereupon it clashed its jaws and
made short rushes at us, and when we threw sticks it
seized them and crunched them. We could not drive it
away. Why it should have shown such truculence and
heedlessness I cannot imagine, unless perhaps it was a
female, with eggs near by. In another little pond a
jacaré-tinga showed no less anger when another of my
companions approached. It bellowed, opened its jaws,
and lashed its tail. Yet these pond jacarés never actu-
ally molested even our dogs in the ponds, far less us on
our horses,

This same day others of our party had an interest-
ing experience with the creatures in another pond. One
of them was Commander da Cunha (of the Brazilian
Navy), a capital sportsman and delightful companion.
They found a deepish pond a hundred yards or so long
and thirty or forty across. It was tenanted by the small
caymans and by capybaras—the largest known rodent,
a huge aquatic guinea-pig, the size of a small sheep. It
also swarmed with piranhas, the ravenous fish of which
I have so often spoken. Undoubtedly the caymans were
subsisting largely on these piranhas. But the tables were
readily turned if any caymans were injured. When a
capybara was shot and sank in the water, the piranhas
at once attacked it, and had eaten half the carcass ten

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 8&9

minutes later. But much more extraordinary was the
fact that when a cayman about five feet long was wounded
the piranhas attacked and tore it, and actually drove it
out on the bank to face its human foes. The fish first
attacked the wound; then, as the blood maddened them,
they attacked all the soft parts, their terrible teeth cut-
ting out chunks of tough hide and flesh. Evidently they
did not molest either cayman or capybara while it was
unwounded; but blood excited them to frenzy. Their
habits are in some ways inexplicable. We saw men fre-
quently bathing unmolested; but there are places where
this is never safe, and in any place if a school of the
fish appear swimmers are in danger; and a wounded
man or beast is in deadly peril if piranhas are in the
neighborhood. Ordinarily it appears that an unwounded
man is attacked only by accident. Such accidents are
rare; but they happen with sufficient frequency to justify
much caution in entering water where piranhas abound.

We frequently came across ponds tenanted by num-
bers of capybaras. The huge, pig-like rodents are said
to be shy elsewhere. Here they were tame. The water
was their home and refuge. They usually went ashore
to feed on the grass, and made well-beaten trails in the
marsh immediately around the water ; but they must have
travelled these at night, for we never saw them more
than a few feet away from the water in the daytime.
Even at midday we often came on them standing beside
a bayou or pond. The dogs would rush wildly at such
a standing beast, which would wait until they were only
a few yards off and then dash into and under the water.
The dogs would also run full tilt into the water, and it

go Through the Brazilian Wilderness

was then really funny to see their surprise and disap-
pointment at the sudden and complete disappearance of
their quarry. Often a capybara would stand or sit on
its haunches in the water, with only its blunt, short-eared
head above the surface, quite heedless of our presence.
But if alarmed it would dive, for capybaras swim with
equal facility on or below the surface; and if they wish
to hide they rise gently among the rushes or water-lily
leaves with only their nostrils exposed. In these waters
the capybaras and small caymans paid no attention to
one another, swimming and resting in close proximity.
They both had the same enemy, the jaguar. The capy-
bara is a game animal only in the sense that a hare or
rabbit is. The flesh is good to eat, and its amphibious
habits and queer nature and surroundings make it in-
teresting. In some of the ponds the water had about
gone, and the capybaras had become for the time being
beasts of the marsh and the mud; although they could
always find little slimy pools, under a mass of water-
lilies, in which to lie and hide.

Our whole stay on this ranch was delightful. On
the long rides we always saw something of interest, and
often it was something entirely new to us. Early one
morning we came across two armadillos—the big, nine-
banded armadillo. We were riding with the pack
through a dry, sandy pasture country, dotted with clumps
of palms, round the trunks of which grew a dense jungle
of thorns and Spanish bayonets. The armadillos were
feeding in an open space between two of these jungle
clumps, which were about a hundred yards apart. One
was on all fours; the other was in a squatting position,

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 91

with its fore legs off the ground. Their long ears were
very prominent. The dogs raced at them. I had always
supposed that armadillos merely shuffled along, and
curled up for protection when menaced; and I was al-
most as surprised as if I had seen a turtle gallop when
these two armadillos bounded off at a run, going as fast
as rabbits. One headed back for the nearest patch of
jungle, which it reached. The other ran at full speed—
and ran really fast, too—until it nearly reached the other
patch, a hundred yards distant, the dogs in full cry im-
mediately behind it. Then it suddenly changed its mind,
wheeled in its tracks, and came back like a bullet right
through the pack. Dog after dog tried to seize it or
stop it and turned to pursue it; but its wedge-shaped
snout and armored body, joined to the speed at which it
was galloping, enabled it to drive straight ahead through
its pursuers, not one of which could halt it or grasp it,
and it reached in safety its thorny haven of refuge. It
had run at speed about a hundred and fifty yards. I was
much impressed by this unexpected exhibition; evidently
this species of armadillo only curls up as a last resort,
and ordinarily trusts to its speed, and to the protection
its build and its armor give it while running, in order to
reach its burrow or other place of safety. Twice, while
laying railway tracks near SAo Paulo, Kermit had acci-
dentally dug up armadillos with a steam-shovel.

There were big ant-hills, some of them of huge di-
mensions, scattered through the country. Sometimes
they were built against the stems of trees. We did not
here come across any of the poisonous or biting ants
which, when sufficiently numerous, render certain dis-

g2 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

tricts uninhabitable. They are ordinarily not very nu-
merous. Those of them that march in large bodies kill
nestling birds, and at once destroy any big animal un-
able to get out of their way. It has been suggested that
nestlings in their nests are in some way immune from
the attack of these ants. The experiments of our natu-
ralists tended to show that this was not the case. They
plundered any nest they came across and could get at.

Once we saw a small herd of peccaries, one a sow
followed by three little pigs—they are said to have only
two young, but we saw three, although of course it is
possible one belonged to another sow. The herd gal-
loped into a mass of thorny cover the hounds could not
penetrate; and when they were in safety we heard them
utter, from the depths of the jungle, a curious moaning
sound.

On one ride we passed a clump of palms which were
fairly ablaze with bird color. There were magnificent
hyacinth macaws; green parrots with red splashes; tou-
cans with varied plumage, black, white, red, yellow;
green jacmars; flaming orioles and both blue and dark-
red tanagers. It was an extraordinary collection. All
were noisy. Perhaps there was a snake that had drawn
them by its presence; but we could find no snake. The
assembly dispersed as we rode up; the huge blue macaws
departed in pairs, uttering their hoarse “ar-rah-h, ar-
tah-h.” It has been said that parrots in the wilderness
are only noisy on the wing. They are certainly noisy on
the wing; and those that we saw were quiet while they
were feeding; but ordinarily when they were perched
among the branches, and especially when, as in the case

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 93

of the little parakeets near the house, they were gather-
ing materials for nest-building, they were just as noisy
as while flying.

The water-birds were always a delight. We shot
merely the two or three specimens the naturalists needed
for the museum. I killed a wood-ibis on the wing with
the handy little Springfield, and then lost all the credit
I had thus gained by a series of inexcusable misses, at
long range, before I finally killed a jabiru. Kermit shot
a jabiru with the Liiger automatic. The great, splendid
birds, standing about as tall as a man, show fight when
wounded, and advance against their assailants, clattering
their formidable bills. One day we found the nest of a
jabiru in a mighty fig-tree, on the edge of a patch of
jungle. It was a big platform of sticks, placed on a
horizontal branch. There were four half-grown young
standing on it. We passed it in the morning, when both
parents were also perched alongside; the sky was then
overcast, and it was not possible to photograph it with
the small camera. In the early afternoon when we again
passed it the sun was out, and we tried to get photo-
graphs. Only one parent bird was present at this time.
It showed no fear. I noticed that, as it stood on a branch
near the nest, its bill was slightly open. It was very hot,
and I suppose it had opened its bill just as a hen opens
her bill in hot weather. As we rode away the old bird
and the four young birds were standing motionless, and
with gliding flight the other old bird was returning to
the nest. It is hard to give an adequate idea of the
wealth of bird life in these marshes. A naturalist could
with the utmost advantage spend six months on such a

94 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

ranch as that we visited. He would have to do some
collecting, but only a little. Exhaustive observation in
the field is what is now most needed. Most of this won-
derful and harmless bird life should be protected by law;
and the mammals should receive reasonable protection.
The books now most needed are those dealing with the
life-histories of wild creatures.

Near the ranch-house, walking familiarly among the
cattle, we saw the big, deep-billed Ani blackbirds. They
feed on the insects disturbed by the hoofs of the cattle,
and often cling to them and pick off the ticks. It was
the end of the nesting season, and we did not find their
curious communal nests, in which half a dozen females
lay their eggs indiscriminately. The common ibises in
the ponds near by—which usually went in pairs, instead
of in flocks like the wood ibis—were very tame, and so
were the night herons and all the small herons. In fly-
ing, the ibises and storks stretch the neck straight in
front of them. The jabiru—a splendid bird on the wing
—also stretches his neck out in front, but there appears
to be a slight downward curve at the base of the neck,
which may be due merely to the craw. The big slender
herons, on the contrary, bend the long neck back in a
beautiful curve, so that the head is nearly between the
shoulders. One day I saw what I at first thought was
a small yellow-bellied kingfisher hovering over a pond,
and finally plunging down to the surface of the water
after a school of tiny young fish; but it proved to be a
bien-te-vi king-bird. Curved-bill wood-hewers, birds the
size and somewhat the coloration of veeries, but with
long, slender sickle-bills, were common in the little gar-

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 95

den back of the house; their habits were those of creep-
ers, and they scrambled with agility up, along, and under
the trunks and branches, and along the posts and rails of
the fence, thrusting the bill into crevices for insects. The
oven-birds, which had the carriage and somewhat the
look of wood-thrushes, I am sure would prove delight-
ful friends on a close acquaintance; they are very indi-
vidual, not only in the extraordinary domed mud nests
they build, but in all their ways, in their bright alertness,
their interest in and curiosity about whatever goes on,
their rather jerky quickness of movement, and their loud
and varied calls. With a little encouragement they be-
come tame and familiar. The parakeets were too noisy,
but otherwise were most attractive little birds, as they
flew to and fro and scrambled about in the top of the
palm behind the house. There was one showy kind of
king-bird or tyrant flycatcher, lustrous black with a white
head.

One afternoon several score cattle were driven into
a big square corral near the house, in order to brand the
calves and a number of unbranded yearlings and two-
year-olds. A special element of excitement was added
by the presence of a dozen big bulls which were to be
turned into draught-oxen. The agility, nerve, and
prowess of the ranch workmen, the herders or gauchos,
were noteworthy. The dark-skinned men were obvi-
ously mainly of Indian and negro descent, although some
of them also showed a strong strain of white blood.
They wore the usual shirt, trousers, and fringed leather
apron, with jim-crow hats. Their bare feet must have
been literally as tough as horn; for when one of them

96 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

roped a big bull he would brace himself, bending back
until he was almost sitting down and digging his heels
into the ground, and the galloping beast would be stopped
short and whirled completely round when the rope taut-
ened. The maddened bulls, and an occasional steer or
cow, charged again and again with furious wrath; but
two or three ropes would settle on the doomed beast,
and down it would go; and when it was released and
rose and charged once more, with greater fury than ever,
the men, shouting with laughter, would leap up the sides
of the heavy stockade.

We stayed at the ranch until a couple of days before
Christmas. Hitherto the weather had been lovely. The
night before we left there was a torrential tropic down-
pour. It was not unexpected, for we had been told that
the rainy season was overdue. The following forenoon
the baggage started, in a couple of two-wheeled ox-carts,
for the landing where the steamboat awaited us. Each
cart was drawn by eight oxen. The huge wheels were
over seven feet high. Early in the afternoon we fol-
lowed on horseback, and overtook the carts as darkness
fell, just before we reached the landing on the river’s
bank. The last few miles, after the final reaches of
higher, tree-clad ground had been passed, were across a
level plain of low ground on which the water stood,
sometimes only up to the ankles of a man on foot, some-
times as high as his waist. Directly in front of us,
many leagues distant, rose the bold mountains that lie
west of Corumba. Behind them the sun was setting
and kindled the overcast heavens with lurid splendor.
Then the last rose tints faded from the sky; the horses

A Jaguar-Hunt on the Taquary 97

plodded wearily through the water; on every side
stretched the marsh, vast, lonely, desolate in the gray
of the half-light. We overtook the ox-carts. The cattle
strained in the yokes; the drivers wading alongside
cracked their whips and uttered strange cries; the carts
rocked and swayed as the huge wheels churned through
the mud and water. As the last light faded we reached
the small patches of dry land at the landing, where the
flat-bottomed side-wheel steamboat was moored to the
bank. The tired horses and oxen were turned loose to
graze. Water stood in the corrals, but the open shed
was on dry ground. Under it the half-clad, wild-looking
ox-drivers and horse-herders slung their hammocks; and
close by they lit a fire and roasted, or scorched, slabs and
legs of mutton, spitted on sticks and propped above the
smouldering flame.

Next morning, with real regret, we waved good-by
to our dusky attendants, as they stood on the bank,
grouped around a little fire, beside the big, empty ox-
carts. A dozen miles down-stream a rowboat fitted for
a spritsail put off from the bank. The owner, a coun-
tryman from a small ranch, asked for a tow to Corumba,
which we gave. He had with him in the boat his comely
brown wife—who was smoking a very large cigar—their
two children, a young man, and a couple of trunks and
various other belongings. On Christmas eve we reached
Corumba, and rejoined the other members of the ex-
pedition.

CHAPTER IV

THE HEADWATERS OF THE PARAGUAY

T Corumba our entire party, and all their be-
A longings, came aboard our good little river boat,
the Nyoac. Christmas Day saw us making our
way steadily up-stream against the strong current, and
between the green and beautiful banks of the upper
Paraguay. The shallow little steamer was jammed with
men, dogs, rifles, partially cured skins, boxes of pro-
visions, ammunition, tools, and photographic supplies,
bags containing tents, cots, bedding, and clothes, saddles,
hammocks, and the other necessaries for a trip through
the “great wilderness,” the “matto grosso” of western
Brazil.

It was a brilliantly clear day, and, although of course
in that latitude and at that season the heat was intense
later on, it was cool and pleasant in the early morning.
We sat on the forward deck, admiring the trees on the
brink of the sheer river banks, the lush, rank grass of the
marshes, and the many water-birds. The two pilots, one
black and one white, stood at the wheel. Colonel Ron-
don read Thomas 4 Kempis. Kermit, Cherrie, and Mil-
ler squatted outside the railing on the deck over one
paddle-wheel and put the final touches on the jaguar-
skins. Fiala satisfied himself that the boxes and bags
were in place. It was probable that hardship lay in the

98

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 99

‘future; but the day was our own, and the day was pleas-
ant. In the evening the after-deck, open all around,
where we dined, was decorated with green boughs and
rushes, and we drank the health of the President of the
United States and of the President of Brazil.

Now and then we passed little ranches on the river’s
edge. This is a fertile land, pleasant to live in, and any
settler who is willing to work can earn his living. There
are mines; there is water-power; there is abundance of
rich soil. The country will soon be opened by rail. It
offers a fine field for immigration and for agricultural,
mining, and business development; and it has a great
future.

Cherrie and Miller had secured a little owl a month
before in the Chaco, and it was travelling with them in
a basket. It was a dear little bird, very tame and affec-
tionate. It liked to be handled and petted; and when
Miller, its especial protector, came into the cabin, it would
make queer little noises as a signal that it wished to be
taken up and perched on his hand. Cherrie and Miller
had trapped many mammals. Among them was a tayra
weasel, whitish above and black below, as big and blood-
thirsty as a fisher-martin; and a tiny opossum: no bigger
than a mouse. They had taken four species of opossum,
but they had not found the curious water-opossum which
they had obtained on the rivers flowing into the Carib-
bean Sea. This opossum, which is black and white,
swims in the streams like a muskrat or otter, catching
fish and living in burrows which open under water.
Miller and Cherrie were puzzled to know why the young
throve, leading such an existence of constant immer-

100 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

sion; one of them once found a female swimming and
diving freely with four quite well-grown young in her
pouch.

We saw on the banks screamers—big, crested waders
of archaic type, with spurred wings, rather short bills,
and no especial affinities with other modern birds. In
one meadow by a pond we saw three marsh-deer, a buck
and two does. They stared at us, with their thickly
haired tails raised on end. These tails are black under-
neath, instead of white as in our whitetail deer. One of
the vagaries of the ultraconcealing-colorationists has been
to uphold the (incidentally quite preposterous) theory
that the tail of our deer is colored white beneath so as
to harmonize with the sky and thereby mislead the cougar
or wolf at the critical moment when it makes its spring;
but this marsh-deer shows a black instead of a white
flag, and yet has just as much need of protection from
its enemies, the jaguar and the cougar. In South Amer-
ica concealing coloration plays no more part in the lives
of the adult deer, the tamandua, the tapir, the peccary,
the jaguar, and the puma than it plays in Africa in the
lives of such animals as the zebra, the sable antelope,
the wildebeeste, the lion, and the hunting hyena.

Next day we spent ascending the Sao Lourengo. It
was narrower than the Paraguay, naturally, and the swirl-
ing brown current was, if anything, more rapid. The
strange tropical trees, standing densely on the banks,
were matted together by long bush ropes—lianas, or
vines, some very slender and very long. Sometimes we
saw brilliant red or blue flowers, or masses of scarlet
berries on a queer palmlike tree, or an array of great

The Headwaters of the Paraguay Io!

white blossoms on a much larger tree. In a lagoon
bordered by the taquara bamboo a school of big otters
were playing ; when they came to the surface, they opened
their mouths like seals, and made a loud hissing noise.
The crested screamers, dark gray and as large as tur-
keys, perched on the very topmost branches of the tallest
trees. Hyacinth macaws screamed harshly as they flew
across the river. Among the trees was the guan, another
peculiar bird as big as a big grouse, and with certain
habits of the wood-grouse, but not akin to any northern
game-bird. The windpipe of the male is very long, ex-
tending down to the end of the breast-bone, and the
bird utters queer guttural screams. A dead cayman
floated down-stream, with a black vulture devouring it.
Capybaras stood or squatted on the banks; sometimes
they stared stupidly at us; sometimes they plunged into
the river at our approach. At long intervals we passed
little clearings. In each stood a house of palm-logs, with
steeply pitched roof of palm thatch; and near by were
patches of corn and mandioc. The dusky owner, and
perhaps his family, came out on the bank to watch us
as we passed. It was a hot day—the thermometer on
the deck in the shade stood at nearly 100 degrees Fahren-
heit. Biting flies came aboard even when we were in
midstream.

Next day we were ascending the Cuyaba River. It
had begun raining in the night, and the heavy downpour
continued throughout the forenoon. In the morning we
halted at a big cattle-ranch to get fresh milk and beef.
There were various houses, sheds, and corrals near the
river’s edge, and fifty or sixty milch cows were gathered

102 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

in one corral. Spurred plover, or lapwings, strolled
familiarly among the hens. Parakeets and red-headed
tanagers lit in the trees over our heads. A kind of
primitive houseboat was moored at the bank. A woman
was cooking breakfast over a little stove at one end.
The crew were ashore. The boat was one of those which
are really stores, and which travel up and down these
rivers, laden with what the natives most need, and stop-
ping wherever there isa ranch. They are the only stores
which many of the country-dwellers see from year’s end
to year’s end. They float down-stream, and up-stream
are poled by their crew, or now and then get a tow from
a steamer. This one had a house with a tin roof; others
bear houses with thatched roofs, or with roofs made
of hides. The river wound through vast marshes broken
by belts of woodland.

Always the two naturalists had something of interest
to tell of their past experience, suggested by some bird
or beast we came across. Black and golden orioles,
slightly crested, of two different species were found
along the river; they nest in colonies, and often we
passed such colonies, the long pendulous nests hanging
from the boughs of trees directly over the water. Cher-
rie told us of finding such a colony built round a big
wasp-nest, several feet in diameter. These wasps are
venomous and irritable, and few foes would dare ven-
ture near bird’s-nests that were under such formidable
shelter; but the birds themselves were entirely unafraid,
and obviously were not in any danger of disagreement
with their dangerous protectors. We saw a dark ibis
flying across the bow of the boat, uttering his deep,

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 103

two-syllabled note. Miller told how on the Orinoco these
ibises plunder the nests of the big river-turtles. They
are very skilful in finding where the female turtle has
laid her eggs, scratch them out of the sand, break the
shells, and suck the contents.

It was astonishing to find so few mosquitoes on these
marshes. They did not in any way compare as pests
with the mosquitoes on the lower Mississippi, the New
Jersey coast, the Red River of the North, or the Koo-
tenay. Back in the forest near Corumba the naturalists
had found them very bad indeed. Cherrie had spent
two or three days on a mountain-top which was bare
of forest; he had thought there would be few mosquitoes,
but the long grass harbored them (they often swarm
in long grass and bush, even where there is no water),
and at night they were such a torment that as soon as
the sun set he had to go to bed under his mosquito-
netting. Yet on the vast marshes they were not seri-
ously troublesome in most places. I was informed that
they were not in any way a bother on the grassy up-
lands, the high country north of Cuyaba, which from
thence stretches eastward to the coastal region. It is
at any rate certain that this inland region of Brazil, in-
cluding the state of Matto Grosso, which we were trav-
ersing, is a healthy region, excellently adapted to settle-
ment; railroads will speedily penetrate it, and then it
will witness an astonishing development.

On the morning of the 28th we reached the home
buildings of the great Sao Joao fazenda, the ranch of
Senhor Joao da Costa Marques. Our host himself, and
his son, Dom Joao the younger, who was state secretary

104 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

of agriculture, and the latter’s charming wife, and the
president of Matto Grosso, and several other ladies and
gentlemen, had come down the river to greet us, from
the city of Cuyaba, several hundred miles farther up-
stream. As usual, we were treated with whole-hearted
and generous hospitality. Some miles below the ranch-
house the party met us, on a stern-wheel steamboat and
a launch, both decked with many flags. The handsome
white ranch-house stood only a few rods back from the
river’s brink, in a grassy opening dotted with those noble
trees, the royal palms. Other trees, buildings of all
kinds, flower-gardens, vegetable-gardens, fields, corrals,
and enclosures with high white walls stood near the
house. A detachment of soldiers or state police, with
a band, were in front of the house, and two flagpoles,
one with the Brazilian flag already hoisted. The Amer-
ican flag was run up on the other as I stepped ashore,
while the band played the national anthems of the two
countries. The house held much comfort; and the com-
fort was all the more appreciated because even indoors
the thermometer stood at 97° F. In the late afternoon
heavy rain fell, and cooled the air. We were riding at
the time. Around the house the birds were tame: the
parrots and parakeets crowded and chattered in the tree
tops; jacanas played in the wet ground just back of the
garden; ibises and screamers called loudly in the swamps
a little distance off.

Until we came actually in sight of this great ranch-
house we had been passing through a hot, fertile, pleasant
wilderness, where the few small palm-roofed houses,
each in its little patch of sugar-cane, corn, and mandioc,

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 105

stood very many miles apart. One of these little houses
stood on an old Indian mound, exactly like the mounds
which form the only hillocks along the lower Mississippi,
and which are also of Indian origin. These occasional
Indian mounds, made ages ago, are the highest bits of
ground in the immense swamps of the upper Paraguay
region. There are still Indian tribes in this neighbor-
hood. We passed an Indian fishing village on the edge
of the river, with huts, scaffoldings for drying the fish,
hammocks, and rude tables. They cultivated patches of
bananas and sugar-cane. Out in a shallow place in the
river was a scaffolding on which the Indians stood to
spear fish. The Indians were friendly, peaceable souls,
for the most part dressed like the poorer classes among
the Brazilians.

Next morning there was to have been a great roded
or round-up, and we determined to have a hunt first, as
there were still several kinds of beasts of the chase,
notably tapirs and peccaries, of which the naturalists
desired specimens. Dom Joao, our host, and his son
accompanied us. Theirs is a noteworthy family. Born
in Matto Grosso, in the tropics, our host had the look of
a northerner and, although a grandfather, he possessed
an abounding vigor and energy such as very few men
of any climate or surroundings do possess. All of his
sons are doing well. The son who was with us was a
stalwart, powerful man, a pleasant companion, an able
public servant, a finished horseman, and a skilled hunter.
He carried a sharp spear, not a rifle, for in Matto Grosso
it is the custom in hunting the jaguar for riflemen and
spearmen to go in at him together when he turns at

106 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

bay, the spearman holding him off if the first shot fails
to stop him, so that another shot can be put in. Alto-
gether, our host and his son reminded one of the best
type of American ranchmen and planters, of those plant-
ers and ranchmen who are adepts in bold and manly
field sports, who are capital men of business, and who
also often supply to the state skilled and faithful public
servants. The hospitality the father and son extended
to us was patriarchal: neither, for instance, would sit
at table with their guests at the beginning of the formal
meals; instead they exercised a close personal super-
vision over the feast. Our charming hostess, however,
sat at the head of the table.

At six in the morning we started, all of us on fine
horses. The day was lowering and overcast. A dozen
dogs were with us, but only one or two were worth
anything. Three or four ordinary countrymen, the ranch
hands, or vaqueiros, accompanied us; they were mainly
of Indian blood, and would have been called peons, or
caboclos, in other parts of Brazil, but here were always
spoken to and of as “camaradas.” They were, of course,
chosen from among the men who were hunters, and each
carried his long, rather heavy and clumsy jaguar-spear.
In front rode our vigorous host and his strapping son,
the latter also carrying a jaguar-spear. The bridles and
saddles of the big ranchmen and of the gentlefolk gen-
erally were handsome and were elaborately ornamented
with silver. The stirrups, for instance, were not only
of silver, but contained so much extra metal in orna-
mented bars and rings that they would have been awk-
ward for less-practised riders, Indeed, as it was, they

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 107

were adapted only for the tips of boots with long,
pointed toes, and were impossible for our feet; our
hosts’ stirrups were long, narrow silver slippers. The
camaradas, on the other hand, had jim-crow saddles and
bridles, and rusty little iron stirrups into which they
thrust their naked toes. But all, gentry and commonalty
alike, rode equally well and with the same skill and fear-
lessness. To see our hosts gallop at headlong speed over
any kind of country toward the sound of the dogs with
their quarry at bay, or to see them handle their horses
in a morass, was a pleasure. It was equally a pleasure
to see a camarada carrying his heavy spear, leading a
hound in a leash, and using his machete to cut his way
through the tangled vine-ropes of a jungle, all at the
same time and all without the slightest reference to the
plunges, and the odd and exceedingly jerky behavior,
of his wild, half-broken horse—for on such a ranch most
of the horses are apt to come in the categories of half-
broken or else of broken-down. One dusky tatterdema-
lion wore a pair of boots from which he had removed
the soles, his bare, spur-clad feet projecting from beneath
the uppers. He was on a little devil of a stallion, which
he rode blindfold for a couple of miles, and there was a
regular circus when he removed the bandage; but evi-
dently it never occurred to him that the animal was
hardly a comfortable riding-horse for a man going out
hunting and encumbered with a spear, a machete, and
other belongings.

The eight hours that we were out we spent chiefly in.
splashing across the marshes, with excursions now and
then into vine-tangled belts and clumps of timber. Some

108 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

of the bayous we had to cross were uncomfortably boggy.
We had to lead the horses through one, wading ahead
of them; and even so two of them mired down, and their
saddles had to be taken off before they could be gotten
out. Among the marsh plants were fields and strips of
the great caeté rush. These caeté flags towered above
the other and lesser marsh plants. They were higher
than the heads of the horsemen. Their two or three
huge banana-like leaves stood straight up on end. The
large brilliant flowers—orange, red, and yellow—were
joined into a singularly shaped and solid string or clus-
ter. Humming-birds buzzed round these flowers; one
species, the sickle-billed hummer, has its bill especially
adapted for use in these queerly shaped blossoms and
gets its food only from them, never appearing around
any other plant.

The birds were tame, even those striking and beau-
tiful birds which under man’s persecution are so apt to
become scarce and shy. The huge jabiru storks, stalking
through the water with stately dignity, sometimes refused
to fly until we were only a hundred yards off; one of
them flew over our heads at a distance of thirty or forty
yards. The screamers, crying curu-curu, and the ibises,
wailing dolefully, came even closer. The wonderful hya-
cinth macaws, in twos and threes, accompanied us at
times for several hundred yards, hovering over our heads
and uttering their rasping screams. In one wood we
came on the black howler monkey. The place smelt
. almost like a menagerie. Not watching with sufficient
care I brushed against a sapling on which the venomous
fire-ants swarmed. They burnt the skin like red-hot cin-

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 109

ders, and left little sores. More than once in the drier
parts of the marsh we met small caymans making their
way from one pool to another. My horse stepped over
one before I saw it. The dead carcasses of others
showed that on their wanderings they had encountered
jaguars or human foes.

We had been out about three hours when one of the
dogs gave tongue in a large belt of woodland and jungle
to the left of our line of march through the marsh. The
other dogs ran to the sound, and after a while the long
barking told that the thing, whatever it was, was at bay
or else in some refuge. We made our way toward the
place on foot. The dogs were baying excitedly at the
mouth of a huge hollow log, and very short examination
showed us that there were two peccaries within, doubt-
less a boar and sow. However, just at this moment the
peccaries bolted from an unsuspected opening at the other
end of the log, dove into the tangle, and instantly dis-
appeared with the hounds in full cry after them. It was
twenty minutes later before we again heard the pack
baying. With much difficulty, and by the incessant swing-
ing of the machetes, we opened a trail through the net-
work of vines and branches. This time there was only
one peccary, the boar. He was at bay in a half-hollow
stump. The dogs were about his head, raving with
excitement, and it was not possible to use the rifle; so
I borrowed the spear of Dom Jodo the younger, and
killed the fierce little boar therewith.

This was an animal akin to our collared peccary,
smaller and less fierce than its white-jawed kinsfolk. It
is a valiant and truculent little beast, nevertheless, and

110 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

if given the chance will bite a piece the size of a teacup
out of either man or dog. It is found singly or in small
parties, feeds on roots, fruits, grass, and delights to
make its home in hollow logs. If taken young it makes
an affectionate and entertaining pet. When the two were
in the hollow log we heard them utter a kind of moan-
ing, or menacing, grunt, long drawn.

An hour or two afterward we unexpectedly struck the
fresh tracks of two jaguars and at once loosed the dogs,
who tore off yelling, on the line of the scent. Unfortu-
nately, just at this moment the clouds burst and a deluge
of rain drove in our faces. So heavy was the downpour
that the dogs lost the trail and we lost the dogs. We
found them again only owing to one of our caboclos; an
Indian with a queer Mongolian face, and no brain at all
that I could discover, apart from his special dealings
with wild creatures, cattle, and horses. He rode in a
huddle of rags; but nothing escaped his eyes, and he
rode anything anywhere. The downpour continued so
heavily that we knew the rodeé had been abandoned, and
we turned our faces for the long, dripping, splashing ride
homeward. Through the gusts of driving rain we could
hardly see the way. Once the rain lightened, and half a
mile away the sunshine gleamed through a rift in the
leaden cloud-mass. Suddenly in this rift of shimmering
brightness there appeared a flock of beautiful white
egrets. With strong, graceful wing-beats the birds urged
their flight, their plumage flashing in the sun. They
then crossed the rift and were swallowed in the gray
gloom of the day.

On the marsh the dogs several times roused capy-

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 111

baras. Where there were no ponds of sufficient size the
capybaras sought refuge in flight through the tangled
marsh. They ran well. Kermit and Fiala went after
one on foot, full-speed, for a mile and a half, with two
hounds which then bayed it—literally bayed it, for the
capybara fought with the courage of a gigantic wood-
chuck. If the pack overtook a capybara, they of course
speedily finished it; but a single dog of our not very
valorous outfit was not able to overmatch its shrill-
squeaking opponent.

Near the ranch-house, about forty feet up in a big
tree, was a jabiru’s nest containing young jabirus. The
young birds exercised themselves by walking solemnly
round the edge of the nest and opening and shutting
their wings. Their heads and necks were down-covered,
instead of being naked like those of their parents. Fiala
wished to take a moving-picture of them while thus
engaged, and so, after arranging his machine, he asked
Harper to rouse the young birds by throwing a stick up
to the nest. He did so, whereupon one young jabiru
hastily opened its wings in- the desired fashion, at the
same time seizing the stick in its bill! It dropped it
at once, with an air of comic disappointment, when it
found that the stick was not edible.

There were many strange birds round about. Tou-
cans were not uncommon. I have never seen any other
bird take such grotesque and comic attitudes as the tou-
can. This day I saw one standing in the top of a tree
with the big bill pointing straight into the air and the
tail also cocked perpendicularly. The toucan is a born
comedian. On the river and in the ponds we saw the

112 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

finfoot, a bird with feet like a grebe and bill and tail
like those of a darter, but, like so many South American
birds, with no close affiliations among other species. The
exceedingly rich bird fauna of South America contains
many species which seem to be survivals from a very
remote geologic past, whose kinsfolk have perished under
the changed conditions of recent ages; and in the case of
many, like the hoatzin and screamer, their like is not
known elsewhere. Herons of many species swarmed in
this neighborhood. The handsomest, was the richly col-
ored tiger bittern. ‘Two other species were so unlike
ordinary herons that I did not recognize them as herons
at all until Cherrie told me what they were. One had a
dark body, a white-speckled or ocellated neck, and a bill
almost like that of an ibis. The other looked white,
but was really mauve-colored, with black on the head.
When perched on a tree it stood like an ibis; and in-
stead of the measured wing-beats characteristic of a her-
on’s flight, it flew with a quick, vigorous flapping of
the wings. There were queer mammals, too, as well as
birds. In the fields Miller trapped mice of a kind en-
tirely new.

Next morning the sky was leaden, and a drenching
rain fell as we began our descent of the river. The rainy
season had fairly begun. For our good fortune we wert
still where we had the cabins aboard the boat, and the
ranch-house, in which to dry our clothes and soggy shoes;
but in the intensely humid atmosphere, hot and steam-
ing, they stayed wet a long time, and were still moist
when we put them on again. Before we left the house
where we had been treated with such courteous hospital-

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 113

ity—the finest ranch-house in Matto Grosso, on a huge
ranch where there are some sixty thousand head of
horned cattle—the son of our host, Dom Jodo the young-
er, the jaguar-hunter, presented me with two magnificent
volumes on the palms of Brazil, the work of Doctor Bar-
boso Rodriguez, one-time director of the Botanical Gar-
dens at Rio Janeiro. The two folios were in a box of
native cedar. No gift more appropriate, none that I
would in the future value more as a reminder of my
stay in Matto Grosso, could have been given me.

All that afternoon the rain continued. It was still
pouring in torrents when we left the Cuyaba for the
Sao Lourengo and steamed up the latter a few miles
before anchoring; Dom Joao the younger had accom-
panied us in his launch. The little river steamer was of
very open build, as is necessary in such a hot climate;
and to keep things dry necessitated also keeping the
atmosphere stifling. The German taxidermist who was
with Colonel Rondon’s party, Reinisch, a very good fel-
low from Vienna, sat on a stool, alternately drenched
with rain and sweltering with heat, and muttered to him-
self: “Ach, Schweinerei!”

Two small caymans, of the common species, with
prominent eyes, were at the bank where we moored, and
betrayed an astonishing and stupid tameness. Neither
the size of the boat nor the commotion caused by the
paddles in any way affected them. They lay inshore, not
twenty feet from us, half out of water; they paid not
the slightest heed to our presence, and only reluctantly
left when repeatedly poked at, and after having been
repeatedly hit with clods of mud and sticks; and even

. 114 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

then one first crawled up on shore, to find out if thereby
he could not rid himself of the annoyance we caused
him.

Next morning it was still raining, but we set off on
a hunt, anyway, going afoot. A couple of brown cama-
radas led the way, and Colonel Rondon, Dom Joao, Ker-
mit, and I followed. The incessant downpour speedily
wet us to the skin. We made our way slowly through
the forest, the machetes playing right and left, up and
down, at every step, for the trees were tangled in a net-
work of vines and creepers. Some of the vines were
as thick as a man’s leg. Mosquitoes hummed about us,
the venomous fire-ants stung us, the sharp spines of a
small palm tore our hands—afterward some of the
wounds festered. Hour after hour we thus walked on
through the Brazilian forest. We saw monkeys, the
common yellowish kind, a species of cebus; a couple
were shot for the museum and the others raced off
among the upper branches of the trees. Then we came
on a party of coatis, which look like reddish, long-snout-
ed, long-tailed, lanky raccoons. They were in the top
of a big tree. One, when shot at and missed, bounced
down to the ground, and ran off through the bushes;
Kermit ran after it and secured it. He came back, to
find us peering hopelessly up into the tree top, trying
to place where the other coatis were. Kermit solved the
difficulty by going up along some huge twisted lianas for
forty or fifty feet and exploring the upper branches;
whereupon down came three other coatis through the
branches, one being caught by the dogs and the other
two escaping. Coatis fight savagely with both teeth and

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 115

claws. Miller told us that he once saw one of them
kill a dog. They feed on all small mammals, birds, and
reptiles, and even on some large ones; they kill iguanas;
Cherrie saw a rattling chase through the trees, a coati
following an iguana at full speed. We heard the rush
of a couple of tapirs, as they broke away in the jungle
in front of the dogs. and headed, according to their
custom, for the river; but we never saw them. One of
the party shot a bush deer—a very pretty, graceful crea-
ture, smaller than our whitetail deer, but kin to it and
doubtless the southernmost representative of the white-
tail group.

The whitetail deer—using the word to designate a
group of deer which can neither be called a subgenus
with many species, nor a widely spread species diverging
into many varieties—is the only North American species
which has spread down into and has outlying representa-
tives in South America. It has been contended that the
species has spread from South America northward. I
do not think so; and the specimen thus obtained furnished
a probable refutation of the theory. It was a buck, and
had just shed its small antlers. The antlers are, there-
fore, shed at the same time as in the north, and it appears
that they are grown at the same time as in the north.
Yet this variety now dwells in the tropics south of the
equator, where the spring, and the breeding season for
most birds, comes at the time of the northern fall in
September, October, and November. That the deer is
an intrusive immigrant, and that it has not yet been in
South America long enough to change its mating season
in accordance with the climate, as the birds—geologically

116 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

doubtless very old residents—have changed their breed-
ing season, is rendered probable by the fact that it con-
forms so exactly in the time of its antler growth to the
universal rule which obtains in the great arctogeal realm,
where deer of many species abound and where the fossil
forms show that they have long existed. The marsh-
deer, which has diverged much further from the northern
type than this bush deer (its horns show a likeness to
those of a blacktail), often keeps its antlers until June
or July, although it begins to grow them again in Au-
gust; however, too much stress must not be laid on this
fact, inasmuch as the wapiti and the cow caribou both
keep their antlers until spring. The specialization of the
' marsh-deer, by the way, is further shown in its hoofs,
which, thanks to its semiaquatic mode of life, have grown
long, like those of such African swamp antelopes as the
lechwe and situtunga.

Miller, when we presented the monkeys to him, told
us that the females both of these monkeys and of the
howlers themselves took care of the young, the males not
assisting them, and moreover that when the young one
was a male he had always found the mother keeping by
herself, away from the old males. On the other hand,
among the marmosets he found the fathers taking as
much care of the young as the mothers; if the mother
had twins, the father would usually carry one, and some-
times both, around with him.

After we had been out four hours our camaradas got
lost; three several times they travelled round in a com-
plete circle; and we had to set them right with the com-
pass. About noon the rain, which had been falling almost

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 117

without interruption for forty-eight hours, let up, and in
an hour or two the sun came out. We went back to the
river, and found our rowboat. In it the hounds—a motley
and rather worthless lot—and the rest of the party were
ferried across to the opposite bank, while Colonel Ron-
don and I stayed in the boat, on the chance that a tapir
might be roused and take to the river. However, no
tapir was found; Kermit killed a collared peccary, and
I shot a capybara representing a color-phase the natu-
ralists wished.

Next morning, January 1, 1914, we were up at five
and had a good New Year’s Day breakfast of hardtack,
ham, sardines, and coffee before setting out on an all-
day’s hunt on foot. I much feared that the pack was al-
most or quite worthless for jaguars, but there were two
or three of the great spotted cats in the neighborhood
and it seemed worth while to make a try for them any-
how. After an hour or two we found the fresh tracks
of two, and after them we went. Our party consisted
of Colonel Rondon, Lieutenant Rogaciano—an excellent
man, himself a native of Matto Grosso, of old Matto
Grosso stock—two others of the party from the Sao
Joao ranch, Kermit, and myself, together with four dark-
skinned camaradas, cowhands from the same ranch. We
soon found that the dogs would not by themselves follow
the jaguar trail; nor would the camaradas, although they
carried spears. Kermit was the one of our party who
possessed the requisite speed, endurance, and eyesight,
and accordingly he led. Two of the dogs would follow
the track half a dozen yards ahead of him, but no far-
ther; and two of the camaradas could just about keep up

118 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

with him. For an hour we went through thick jungle,
where the machetes were constantly at work. Then the
trail struck off straight across the marshes, for jaguars
swim and wade as freely as marsh-deer. It was a hard
walk. The sun was out. We were drenched with sweat.
We were torn by the spines of the innumerable clusters
of small palms with thorns like needles. We were bit-
ten by the hosts of fire-ants, and by the mosquitoes,
which we scarcely noticed where the fire-ants were found,
exactly as all dread of the latter vanished when we were
menaced by the big red wasps, of which a dozen stings
will disable a man, and if he is weak or in bad health
will seriously menace his life. In the marsh we were
continually wading, now up to our knees, now up to our
hips. Twice we came to long bayous so deep that we
had to swim them, holding our rifles above water in our
right hands. The floating masses of marsh grass, and
the slimy stems of the water-plants, doubled our work
as we swam, cumbered by our clothing and boots and
holding our rifles aloft. One result of the swim, by the
way, was that my watch, a veteran of Cuba and Africa,
came to an indignant halt. Then on we went, hampered
by the weight of our drenched clothes while our soggy
boots squelched as we walked. There was no breeze.
In the undimmed sky the sun stood almost overhead.
The heat beat on us in waves. By noon I could only
go forward at a slow walk, and two of the party were
worse off than I was. Kermit, with the dogs and two
camaradas close behind him, disappeared across the
marshes at a trot. At last, when he was out of sight,
and it was obviously useless to follow him, the rest of us

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 119

turned back toward the boat. The two exhausted mem-
bers of the party gave out, and we left them under a
tree. Colonel Rondon and Lieutenant Rogaciano were
not much tired; I was somewhat tired, but was perfectly
able to go for several hours more if I did not try to go
too fast; and we three walked on to the river, reaching
it about half past four, after eleven hours’ stiff walking
with nothing to eat. We were soon on the boat. A re-
lief party went back for the two men under the tree,
and soon after it reached them Kermit also turned up
with his hounds and his camaradas trailing wearily be-
hind him. He had followed, the jaguar trail until the
dogs were so tired that’ even after he had bathed them,
and then held their noses in the fresh footprints, they
would pay no heed to the scent. A hunter of scientific
tastes, a hunter-naturalist, or even an outdoors naturalist,
or faunal naturalist interested in big mammals, with a
pack of hounds such as those with which Paul Rainey
hunted lion and leopard in Africa, or such a pack as the
packs of Johnny Goff and Jake Borah with which I
hunted cougar, lynx, and bear in the Rockies, or such
packs as those of the Mississippi and Louisiana planters
with whom I have hunted bear, wild-cat, and deer in the
cane-brakes of the lower Mississippi, would not only en-
joy fine hunting in these vast marshes of the upper
Paraguay, but would also do work of real scientific value
as regards all the big cats.

Only a limited number of the naturalists who have
worked in the tropics have had any experience with the
big beasts whose life-histories possess such peculiar in-
terest. Of all the biologists who have seriously studied

120 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

the South American fauna on the ground, Bates probably
rendered most service; but he hardly seems even to have
seen the animals with which the hunter is fairly familiar.
His interests, and those of the other biologists of his
kind, lay in other directions. In consequence, in treat-
ing of the life-histories of the very interesting big game,
we have been largely forced to rely either on native
report, in which acutely accurate observation is invariably
mixed with wild fable, or else on the chance remarks
of travellers or mere sportsmen, who had not the train-
ing to make them understand even what it was desirable
to observe. Nowadays there is a growing proportion of
big-game hunters, of sportsmen, who are of the Schilling,
Selous, and Shiras type. These men do work of capital
value for science. The mere big-game butcher is tending
to disappear asa type. On the other hand, the big-game
hunter who is a good observer, a good field naturalist,
occupies at present a more important position than ever
before, and it is now recognized that he can do work
which the closest naturalist cannot do. The big-game
hunter of this type and the outdoors, faunal naturalist,
the student of the life-histories of big mammals, have
open to them in South America a wonderful field in
which to work.

The fire-ants, of which I have above spoken, are gen-
erally found on a species of small tree or sapling, with a
greenish trunk. They bend the whole body as they bite.
the tail and head being thrust downward. A few sec-
onds after the bite the poison causes considerable pain;
later it may make a tiny festering sore. There is cer-
tainly the most extraordinary diversity in the traits by

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 121

which nature achieves the perpetuation of species.
Among the warrior and predaceous insects the prowess
is in some cases of such type as to render the possessor
practically immune from danger. In other cases the
condition of its exercise may normally be the sacrifice
of the life of the possessor. There are wasps that prey
on formidable fighting spiders, which yet instinctively
so handle themselves that the prey practically never suc-
ceeds in either defending itself or retaliating, being cap-
tured and paralyzed with unerring efficiency and with
entire security to the wasp. The wasp’s safety is abso-
lute. On the other hand, these fighting ants, including
the soldiers even among the termites, are frantically eager
for a success which generally means their annihilation;
the condition of their efficiency is absolute indifference to
their own security. Probably the majority of the ants
that actually lay hold on a foe suffer death in conse-
quence; certainly they not merely run the risk of but
eagerly invite death.

The following day we descended the Sao Lourengo
to its junction with the Paraguay, and once more began
the ascent of the latter. At one cattle-ranch where we
stopped, the troupials, or big black and yellow orioles,
had built a large colony of their nests on a dead tree
near the primitive little ranch-house. The birds were
breeding; the old ones were feeding the young. In this
neighborhood the naturalists found many birds that were
new to them, including a tiny woodpecker no bigger than
a ruby-crowned kinglet. They had collected two night
monkeys—nocturnal monkeys, not as agile as the ordi-

122 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

nary monkey; these two were found at dawn, having
stayed out too late.

The early morning was always lovely on these rivers,
and at that hour many birds and beasts were to be seen.
One morning we saw a fine marsh buck, holding his head
aloft as he stared at us, his red coat vivid against the
green marsh. Another of these marsh-deer swam the
river ahead of us; I shot at it as it landed, and ought
to have got it, but did not. As always with these marsh-
deer—and as with so many other deer—I was struck
by the revealing or advertising quality of its red colora-
tion; there was nothing in its normal surroundings with
which this coloration harmonized; so far as it had any
effect whatever it was always a revealing and not a
concealing effect. When the animal fled the black of
the erect tail was an additional revealing mark, although
not of such startlingly advertising quality as the flag of
the whitetail. The whitetail, in one of its forms, and
with the ordinary whitetail custom of displaying the
white flag as it runs, is found in the immediate neigh-
borhood of the swamp-deer. It has the same foes.
Evidently it is of no survival consequence whether the
running deer displays a white or a black flag. Any com-
petent observer of big game must be struck by the fact
that in the great majority of the species the coloration is
not concealing, and that in many it has a highly reveal-
ing quality. Moreover, if the spotted or striped young
represent the ancestral coloration, and if, as seems proba-
ble, the spots and stripes have, on the whole, some slight
concealing value, it is evident that in the life history of
most of these large mammals, both among those that

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 123

prey and those that are preyed on, concealing coloration
has not been a survival factor; throughout the ages dur-
ing which they have survived they have gradually lost
whatever of concealing coloration they may once have
had—if any—and have developed a coloration which
under present conditions has no concealing and perhaps
even has a revealing quality, and which in all probability
never would have had a concealing value in any “envi-
ronmental complex” in which the species as a whole lived
during its ancestral development. Indeed, it seems as-
tonishing, when one observes these big beasts—and big
waders and other water-birds—in their native surround-
ings, to find how utterly non-harmful their often strik-
ingly revealing coloration is. Evidently the various
other survival factors, such as habit, and in many cases
cover, etc., are of such overmastering importance that
the coloration is generally of no consequence whatever,
one way or the other, and is only very rarely a factor of
any serious weight.

The junction of the Sao Lourenco and the Paraguay
is a day’s journey above Corumba. From Corumba
there is a regular service by shallow steamers to Cuyaba,
at the head of one fork, and to Sado Luis de Caceres, at
the head of the other. The steamers are not powerful
and the voyage to each little city takes a week. There
are other forks that are navigable. Above Cuyaba and
Caceres launches go up-stream for several days’ journey,
except during the dryest parts of the season. North of
this marshy plain lies the highland, the Plan Alto, where
the nights are cool and the climate healthy. But I wish
emphatically to record my view that these marshy plains,

124 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

although hot, are also healthy; and, moreover, the mos-
quitoes, in most places, are not in sufficient numbers to
be a serious pest, although of course there must be nets
for protection against them at night. The country is
excellently suited for settlement, and offers a remarkable
field for cattle-growing. Moreover, it is a paradise for
water-birds and for many other kinds of birds, and for
many mammals. It is literally an ideal place in which a
field naturalist could spend six months or a year. It is
readily accessible, it offers an almost virgin field for
work, and the life would be healthy as well as delight-
fully attractive. The man should have a steam-launch,
In it he could with comfort cover all parts of the coun-
try from south of Coimbra to north of Cuyaba and
Caceres. There would have to be a good deal of collect-
ing (although nothing in the nature of butchery should
be tolerated), for the region has only been superficially
worked, especially as regards mammals. But if the man
were only a collector he would leave undone the part of
the work best worth doing. The region offers extraor-
dinary opportunities for the study of the life-histories of
birds which, because of their size, their beauty, or their
habits, are of exceptional interest. All kinds of prob-
lems would be worked out. For example, on the morn-
ing of the 3d, as we were ascending the Paraguay, we
again and again saw in the trees on the bank big nests
of sticks, into and out of which parakeets were flying by
the dozen. Some of them had straws or twigs in their
bills. In some of the big globular nests we could make
out several holes of exit or entrance. Apparently these
parakeets were building or remodelling communal nests;

The Headwaters of the Paraguay: 125

but whether they had themselves built these nests, or had
taken old nests and added to or modified them, we could
not tell. There was so much of interest all along the
banks that we were continually longing to stop and spend
days where we were. Mixed flocks of scores of cor-
morants and darters covered certain trees, both at sunset
and after sunrise. Although there was no deep forest,
merely belts or fringes of trees along the river, or in
patches back of it, we frequently saw monkeys in this
riverine tree-fringe—active common monkeys and black
howlers of more leisurely gait. We saw caymans and
capybaras sitting socially near one another on the sand-
banks, At night we heard the calling of large flights of
tree-ducks. These were now the most common of all
the ducks, although there were many muscovy ducks also.
The evenings were pleasant and not hot, as we sat on the
forward deck; there was a waxing moon. The scream-
ers were among the most noticeable birds. They were
noisy; they perched on the very tops of the trees, not
down among the branches; and they were not shy. They
should be carefully protected by law, for they readily
become tame, and then come familiarly round the houses.
From the steamer we now and then saw beautiful orchids
in the trees on the river bank.

One afternoon we stopped at the home buildings or
headquarters of one of the great outlying ranches of the
Brazil Land and Cattle Company, the Farquahar syndi-
cate, under the management of Murdo Mackenzie—than
whom we have in the United States no better citizen
or more competent cattleman. On this ranch there are
some seventy thousand head of stock. We were warmly

126 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

greeted by McLean, the head of the ranch, and his as-
sistant Ramsey, an old Texan friend. Among the other
assistants, all equally cordial, were several Belgians and
Frenchmen. The hands were Paraguayans and Brazil-
ians, and a few Indians—a hard-bit set, each of whom
always goes armed and knows how to use his arms, for
there are constant collisions with cattle thieves from
across the Bolivian border, and the ranch has to protect
itself. These cowhands, vaqueiros, were of the type with
which we were now familiar: dark-skinned, lean, hard-
faced men, in slouch-hats, worn shirts and trousers, and
fringed leather aprons, with heavy spurs on their bare
feet. They are wonderful riders and ropers, and fear
neither man nor beast. I noticed one Indian vaqueiro
standing in exactly the attitude of a Shilluk of the White
Nile, with the sole of one foot against the other leg, above
the knee. This is a region with extraordinary possi-
bilities of cattle-raising.

At this ranch there was a tannery; a slaughter-house;
a cannery; a church; buildings of various kinds and all
degrees of comfort for the thirty or forty families who
made the place their headquarters; and the handsome,
white, two-story big house, standing among lemon-trees
and flamboyants on the river-brink. There were all kinds
of pets around the house. The most fascinating was a
wee, spotted fawn which loved being petted. Half a
dozen curassows of different species strolled through the
rooms; there were also parrots of several different spe-
cies, and immediately outside the house four or five
herons, with unclipped wings, which would let us come
within a few feet and then fly gracefully off, shortly

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 127

afterward returning to the same spot. They included big
and little white egrets and also the mauve and pearl-
colored heron, with a partially black head and many-
colored bill, which flies with quick, repeated wing-flap-
pings, instead of the usual slow heron wing-beats.

In the warehouse were scores of skins of jaguar,
puma, ocelot, and jaguarundi, and one skin of the big,
small-toothed red wolf. These were all brought in by the
cowhands and by friendly Indians, a price being put on
each, as they destroyed the stock. The jaguars occasion-
ally killed horses and full-grown cows, but not bulls.
The pumas killed the calves. The others killed an oc-
casional very young calf, but ordinarily only sheep, little
pigs, and chickens. There was one black jaguar-skin;
melanism is much more common among jaguars than
pumas, although once Miller saw a black puma that had
been killed by Indians. The patterns of the jaguar-skins,
and even more of the ocelot-skins, showed wide varia-
tion, no two being alike. The pumas were for the most
part bright red, but some were reddish gray, there being
much the same dichromatism that I found among their
Colorado kinsfolk. The jaguarundis were dark brown-
ish gray. All these animals, the spotted jaguars and
ocelots, the monochrome black jaguars, red pumas, and
dark-gray jaguarundis, were killed in the same locality,
with the same environment. A glance at the skins and a
moment’s serious thought would have been enough to
show any sincere thinker that in these cats the coloration
pattern, whether concealing or revealing, is of no conse-
quence one way or the other as a survival factor. The
spotted patterns conferred no benefit as compared with

128 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

the nearly or quite monochrome blacks, reds, and dark
grays. The bodily condition of the various beasts was
equally good, showing that their success in life, that is,
their ability to catch their prey, was unaffected by their
several color schemes. Except white, there is no color
so conspicuously advertising as black; yet the black jag-
uar had been a fine, well-fed, powerful beast. The
spotted patterns in the forests, and perhaps even in the
marshes which the jaguars so frequently traversed, are
probably a shade less conspicuous than the monochrome
red and gray, but the puma and jaguarundi are just as
hard to see, and evidently find it just as easy to catch
prey, as the jaguar and ocelot. The little fawn which we
saw was spotted; the grown deer had lost the spots; if
the spots do really help to conceal the wearer, it is evi-
dent that the deer has found the original concealing
coloration of so little value that it has actually been lost
in the course of the development of the species. When
these big cats and the deer are considered, together with.
the dogs, tapirs, peccaries, capybaras, and big ant-eaters
which live in the same environment, and when we also
consider the difference between the young and the adult
deer and tapirs (both of which when adult have substi-
tuted a complete or partial monochrome for the ances-
tral spots and streaks), it is evident that in the present
life and in the ancestral development of the big mammals
of South America coloration is not and has not been a
survival factor; any pattern and any color may accom-
pany the persistence and development of the qualities and
attributes which are survival factors. Indeed, it seems
hard to believe that in their ordinary environments such

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 129

color schemes as the bright red of the marsh-deer, the
black of the black jaguar, and the black with white
stripes of the great tamandua, are not positive detriments
to the wearers. Yet such is evidently not the case. Evi-
dently the other factors in species-survival are of such
overwhelming importance that the coloration becomes
negligible from this standpoint, whether it be concealing
or revealing. The cats mould themselves to the ground
as they crouch or crawl. They take advantage of the
tiniest scrap of cover. They move with extraordinary
stealth and patience. The other animals which try to
sneak off in such manner as to escape observation ap-
proach more or less closely to the ideal which the cats
most nearly realize. Wariness, sharp senses, the habit
of being rigidly motionless when there is the least sus-
picion of danger, and ability to take advantage of cover,
all count. On the bare, open, treeless plain, whether
marsh, meadow, or upland, anything above the level of
the grass is seen at once. A marsh-deer out in the open
makes no effort to avoid observation; its concern is
purely to see its foes in time to leave a dangerous neigh-
borhood. The deer of the neighboring forest skulk and
hide and lie still in dense cover to avoid being seen. The
white-lipped peccaries make no effort to escape observa-
tion by being either noiseless or motionless; they trust
for defence to their gregariousness and truculence. The
collared peccary also trusts to its truculence, but seeks
refuge in a hole where it can face any opponent with its
formidable biting apparatus. As for the giant tamandua,
in spite of its fighting prowess I am wholly unable to
understand how such a slow and clumsy beast has been

130 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

able through the ages to exist and thrive surrounded by
jaguars and pumas. Speaking generally, the animals
that seek to escape observation trust primarily to smell
to discover their foes or their prey, and see whatever
moves and do not see whatever is motionless.

By the morning of January 5 we had left the marsh
region. There were low hills here and there, and the
land was covered with dense forest. From time to time
we passed little clearings with palm-thatched houses.
We were approaching Caceres, where the easiest part of
our trip would end. We had lived in much comfort on
the little steamer. The food was plentiful and the cook-
ing good. At night we slept on deck in cots or ham-
mocks. The mosquitoes were rarely troublesome, al-
though in the daytime we were sometimes bothered by
numbers of biting horse-flies. The bird life was won-
derful. One of the characteristic sights we were always
seeing was that of a number of heads and necks of cor-
morants and snake-birds, without any bodies, projecting
above water, and disappearing as the steamer approached.
Skimmers and thick-billed tern were plentiful here right
in the heart of the continent. In addition to the spurred
lapwing, characteristic and most interesting resident of
most of South America, we found tiny red-legged plover
which also breed and are at home in the tropics. The
contrasts in habits between closely allied species are
wonderful. Among the plovers and bay snipe there are
species that live all the year round in almost the same
places, in tropical and subtropical lands; and other re-
lated forms which wander over the whole earth, and
spend nearly all their time, now in the arctic and cold

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 131

temperate regions of the far north, now in the cold tem-
perate regions of the south. These latter wide-wander-
ing birds of the seashore and the river bank pass most of
their lives in regions of almost perpetual sunlight. They
spend the breeding season, the northern summer, in the
land of the midnight sun, during the long arctic day.
They then fly for endless distances down across the north
temperate zone, across the equator, through the lands
where the days and nights are always of equal length,
into another hemisphere, and spend another summer of
long days and long twilights in the far south, where the
antarctic winds cool them, while their nesting home, at
the other end of the world, is shrouded beneath the iron
desolation of the polar night.

In the late afternoon of the 5th we reached the quaint
old-fashioned little town of Sao Luis de Caceres, on the
outermost fringe of the settled region of the state of
Matto Grosso, the last town we should see before reach-
ing the villages of the Amazon. As we approached we
passed half-clad black washerwomen on the river’s edge.
The men, with the local band, were gathered at the
steeply sloping foot of the main street, where the steamer
came to her moorings. Groups of women and girls,
white and brown, watched us from the low bluff; their
skirts and bodices were red, blue, green, of all colors,
Sigg had gone ahead with much of the baggage; he met
us in an improvised motor-boat, consisting of a dugout
to the side of which he had clamped our Evinrude mo-
tor; he was giving several of the local citizens of promi-
nence a ride, to their huge enjoyment. The streets of
the little town were unpaved, with narrow brick side-

132 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

walks. The one-story houses were white or blue, with
roofs of red tiles and window-shutters of latticed wood-
work, come down from colonial days and tracing back
through Christian and Moorish Portugal to a remote
Arab ancestry. Pretty faces, some dark, some light,
looked out from these windows; their mothers’ mothers,
for generations past, must thus have looked out of simi-
lar windows in the vanished colonial days. But now
even here in Caceres the spirit of the new Brazil is mov-
ing; a fine new government school has been started, and
we met its principal, an earnest man doing excellent
work, one of the many teachers who, during the last few
years, have been brought to Matto Grosso from Sao
Paulo, a centre of the new educational movement which
will do so much for Brazil.

Father Zahm went to spend the night with some
French Franciscan friars, capital fellows. I spent the
night at the comfortable house of Lieutenant Lyra; a
hot-weather house with thick walls, big doors, and an
open patio bordered by a gallery. Lieutenant Lyra was
to accompany us; he was an old companion of Colonel
Rondon’s explorations. We visited one or two of the
stores to make some final purchases, and in the evening
strolled through the dusky streets and under the trees of
the plaza; the women and girls sat in groups in the door-
ways or at the windows, and here and there a stringed
instrument tinkled in the darkness.

From Caceres onward we were entering the scene of
Colonel Rondon’s explorations. For some eighteen years
he was occupied in exploring and in opening telegraph-
lines through the eastern or north-middle part of the

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 133

great forest state, the wilderness state of the “matto
grosso”’ —the “great wilderness,” or, as Australians
would call it, “the bush.” Then, in 1907, he began to
penetrate the unknown region lying to the north and
west. He was the head of the exploring expeditions sent
out by the Brazilian Government to traverse for the first
time this unknown land; to map for the first time the
courses of the rivers which from the same divide run
into the upper portions of the Tapajos and the Madeira,
two of the mighty affluents of the Amazon, and to build
telegraph-lines across to the Madeira, where a line of
Brazilian settlements, connected by steamboat lines and
a railroad, again occurs. Three times he penetrated into
this absolutely unknown, Indian-haunted wilderness, be-
ing absent for a year or two at a time and suffering
every imaginable hardship, before he made his way
through to the Madeira and completed the telegraph-line
across. The officers and men of the Brazilian Army and
the civilian scientists who followed him shared the toil
and the credit of the task. Some of his men died of
beriberi; some were killed or wounded by the Indians;
he himself almost died of fever; again and again his
whole party was reduced almost to the last extremity by
starvation, disease, hardship, and the overexhaustion due
to wearing fatigues. In dealing with the wild, naked
savages he showed a combination of fearlessness, wari-
ness, good judgment, and resolute patience and kindli-
ness, The result was that they ultimately became his
firm friends, guarded the telegraph-lines, and helped the
few soldiers left at the isolated, widely separated little
posts. He and his assistants explored, and mapped for

134 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

the first time, the Juruena and the Gy-Parana, two im-
portant affluents of the Tapajos and the Madeira re-
spectively. The Tapajos and the Madeira, like the Ori-
noco and Rio Negro, have been highways of travel for
a couple of centuries. The Madeira (as later the Tapa-
jos) was the chief means of ingress, a century and a half
ago, to the little Portuguese settlements of this far in-
terior region of Brazil; one of these little towns, named
Matto Grosso, being the original capital of the province.
It has long been abandoned by the government, and prac-
tically so by its inhabitants, the ruins of palace, fortress,
and church now rising amid the rank tropical luxuriance
of the wild forest. The mouths of the main affluents of
these highway rivers were as a rule well known. But in
many cases nothing but the mouth was known. The
river itself was not known, and it was placed on the map
by guesswork. Colonel Rondon found, for example,
that the course of the Gy-Parana was put down on the
map two degrees out of its proper place. He, with his
party, was the first to find out its sources, the first to
traverse its upper course, the first to map its length. He
and his assistants performed a similar service for the
Juruena, discovering the sources, discovering and de-
scending some of the branches, and for the first time
making a trustworthy map of the main river itself, until
its junction with the Tapajos. Near the watershed be-
tween the Juruena and the Gy-Parand he established his
farthest station to the westward, named José Bonofacio,
after one of the chief republican patriots of Brazil. A
couple of days’ march northwestward from this station,
he in 1909 came across a part of the stream of a river

The Headwaters of the Paraguay 135

running northward between the Gy-Parana and the Ju-
ruena; he could only guess where it debouched, believing
it to be into the Madeira, although it was possible that
it entered the Gy-Parana or Tapajos. The region
through which it flows was unknown, no civilized man
having ever penetrated it; and as all conjecture as to
what the river was, as to its length, and as to its place
of entering into some highway river, was mere guess-
work, he had entered it on his sketch maps as the Rio
da Duvida, the River of Doubt. Among the officers of
the Brazilian Army and the scientific civilians who have
accompanied him there have been not only expert cartog-
raphers, photographers, and telegraphists, but astrono-
mers, geologists, botanists, and zoologists. Their reports,
published in excellent shape by the Brazilian Govern-
ment, make an invaluable series of volumes, reflecting
the highest credit on the explorers, and on the govern-
ment itself. Colonel Rondon’s own accounts of his ex-
plorations, of the Indian tribes he has visited, and of the
beautiful and wonderful things he has seen, possess a
peculiar interest.

CHAPTER V

UP THE RIVER OF TAPIRS

FTER leaving Caceres we went up the Sepotuba,
which in the local Indian dialect means River

of Tapirs. This river is only navigable for
boats of size when the water is high. It is a swift, fairly
clear stream, rushing down from the Plan Allto, the high
uplands, through the tropical lowland forest. On the
right hand, or western bank, and here and there on the
left bank, the forest is broken by natural pastures and
meadows, and at one of these places, known as Porto
Campo, sixty or seventy miles above the mouth, there
is a good-sized cattle-ranch. Here we halted, because
the launch, and the two pranchas—native trading-boats
with houses on their decks—which it towed, could not
carry our entire party and outfit. Accordingly most of
the baggage and some of the party were sent ahead to
where we were to meet our pack-train, at Tapirapoan.
Meanwhile the rest of us made our first camp under tents
at Porto Campo, to wait the return of the boats. The
tents were placed in a line, with the tent of Colonel Ron-
don and the tent in which Kermit and I slept, in the
middle, beside one another. In front of these two, on
tall poles, stood the Brazilian and American flags; and
at sunrise and sunset the flags were hoisted and hauled

136

Up the River of Tapirs 137

down while the trumpet sounded and all of us stood at
attention. Camp was pitched beside the ranch buildings.
In the trees near the tents grew wonderful violet orchids.

Many birds were around us; I saw some of them,
and Cherrie and Miller many, many more. They ranged
from party-colored macaws, green parrots, and big
gregarious cuckoos down to a brilliant green-and-chest-
nut kingfisher, five and a quarter inches long, and a tiny
orange-and-green manakin, smaller than any bird I have
ever seen except a hummer. We also saw a bird that
really was protectively colored; a kind of whippoorwill
which even the sharp-eyed naturalists could only make
out because it moved its head. We saw orange-bellied
squirrels with showy orange tails. Lizards were com-
mon. We killed our first poisonous snake (the second
we had seen), an evil lance-headed jararaca that was
swimming the river. We also saw a black-and-orange
harmless snake, nearly eight feet long, which we were
told was akin to the mussurama; and various other
snakes. One day while paddling in a canoe on the river,
hoping that the dogs might drive a tapir to us, they
drove into the water a couple of small bush deer instead.
There was no point in shooting them; we caught them
with ropes thrown over their heads; for the naturalists
needed them as specimens, and all of us needed the meat.
One of the men was stung by a single big red maribundi
wasp. For twenty-four hours he was in great pain and
incapacitated for work. In a lagoon two of the dogs
had the tips of their tails bitten off by piranhas as they
swam, and the ranch hands told us that in this lagoon
one of their hounds had been torn to pieces and com-

138 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

pletely devoured by the ravenous fish. It was a further
illustration of the uncertainty of temper and behavior of
these ferocious little monsters. In other lagoons they
had again and again left us and our dogs unmolested.
They vary locally in aggressiveness just as sharks and
crocodiles in different seas and rivers vary.

On the morning of January 9th we started out for a
tapir-hunt. Tapirs are hunted with canoes, as they dwell
in thick jungle and take to the water when hounds follow
them. In this region there were extensive papyrus-
swamps and big lagoons, back from the river, and often
the tapirs fled to these for refuge, throwing off the
hounds. In these places it was exceedingly difficult to
get them; our best chance was to keep to the river in
canoes, and paddle toward the spot in the direction of
which the hounds, by the noise, seemed to be heading.
We started in four canoes. Three of them were Indian:
dugouts, very low in the water. The fourth was our
Canadian canoe, a beauty; light, safe, roomy, made of
thin slats of wood and cement-covered canvas. Colonel
Rondon, Fiala with his camera, and I went in this canoe,
together with two paddlers. The paddlers were natives
of the poorer class. They were good men. The bows-
man was of nearly pure white blood; the steersman was
of nearly pure negro blood, and was evidently the
stronger character and better man of the two. The other
canoes carried a couple of fazendeiros, ranchmen, who
had come up from Caceres with their dogs. These dug-
outs were manned by Indian and half-caste paddlers,
and the fazendeiros, who were of nearly pure white
blood, also at times paddled vigorously. All were dressed

Up ‘the River of Tapirs 139

in substantially similar clothes, the difference being that
those of the camaradas, the poorer men or laborers, were
in tatters. In the canoes no man wore anything save a
shirt, trousers, and hat, the feet being bare. On horse-
back they wore long leather leggings which were really
simply high, rather flexible boots with the soles off; their
spurs were on their tough bare feet. There was every
gradation between and among the nearly pure whites,
negroes, and Indians. On the whole, there was most
white blood in the upper ranks, and most Indian and
negro blood among the camaradas; but there were ex-
ceptions in both classes, and there was no discrimination
on account of color. All alike were courteous and
friendly.

The hounds were at first carried in two of the dug-
outs, and then let loose on the banks. We went up-
stream for a couple of hours against the swift current,
the paddlers making good headway with their pointed
paddles—the broad blade of each paddle was tipped with
a long point, so that it could be thrust into the mud to
keep the low dugout against the bank. The tropical
forest came down almost like a wall, the tall trees laced
together with vines, and the spaces between their trunks
filled with a low, dense jungle. In most places it could
only be penetrated by a man with a machete. With few
exceptions the trees were unknown to me, and their
native names told me nothing. On most of them the
foliage was thick; among the exceptions were the ce-
cropias, growing by preference on new-formed alluvial
soil bare of other trees, whose rather scanty leaf bunches
were, as I was informed, the favorite food of sloths.

140 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

We saw one or two squirrels among the trees, and a
family of monkeys. There were few sand-banks in the
river, and no water-fowl save an occasional cormorant.
But as we pushed along near the shore, where the
branches overhung and dipped in the swirling water, we
continually roused little flocks of bats. : They were hang-
ing from the boughs right over the river, and when our
approach roused them they zigzagged rapidly in front of
us for a few rods, and then again dove in among the
branches.

At last we landed at a point of ground where there’
was little jungle, and where the forest was composed of
palms and was fairly open. It was a lovely bit of forest.
The colonel strolled off in one direction, returning an
hour later with a squirrel for the naturalists. Meanwhile
Fiala and I went through the palm wood to a papyrus-
swamp. Many trails led through the woods, and espe-
cially along the borders of the swamp; and, although
their principal makers had evidently been cattle, yet there
were in them footprints of both tapir and deer. The
tapir makes a footprint much like that of a small rhi-
nocerous, being one of the odd-toed ungulates. We
could hear the dogs now and then, evidently scattered
and running on various trails. They were a worthless
lot of cur-hounds. They would chase tapir or deer or
anvthing else that ran away from them as long as the
trail was easy to follow; but they were not stanch, even
after animals that fled, and they would have nothing
whatever to do with animals that were formidable.

While standing by the marsh we heard something
coming along one of the game paths. In a moment a

Up the River of Tapirs 141

buck of the bigger species of bush deer appeared, a very
pretty and graceful creature. It stopped and darted back
as soon as it saw us, giving us no chance for a shot; but
in another moment we caught glimpses of it running by
at full speed, back among the palms. I covered an open-
ing between two tree-trunks. By good luck the buck
appeared in the right place, giving me just time to hold
well ahead of him and fire. At the report he went down
in a heap, the “umbrella-pointed” bullet going in at one
shoulder, and ranging forward, breaking the neck. The
leaden portion of the bullet, in the proper mushroom or
umbrella shape, stopped under the neck skin on the far-
ther side. It is a very effective bullet.

Miller particularly wished specimens of these various
species of bush deer, because their mutual relationships
have not yet been satisfactorily worked out. This was
an old buck. The antlers were single spikes, five or six
inches long; they were old and white and would soon
have been shed. In the stomach were the remains of
both leaves and grasses, but especially the former; the
buck was both a browser and grazer. There were also
seeds, but no berries or nuts such as I have sometimes
found in deers’ stomachs. This species, which is abun-
dant in this neighborhood, is solitary in its habits, not
going in herds. At this time the rut was past, the bucks
no longer sought the does, the fawns had not been born,
and the yearlings had left their mothers; so that each ani-
mal usually went by itself. When chased they were very
apt to take to the water. This instinct of taking to the
water, by the way, is quite explicable as regards both deer
and tapir, for it affords them refuge against their present-

142 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

day natural foes, but it is a little puzzling to see the
jaguar readily climbing trees to escape dogs; for ages
have passed since there were in its habitat any natural
foes from which it needed to seek safety in trees. But
it is possible that the habit has been kept alive by its
seeking refuge in them on occasion from the big pec-
caries, which are among the beasts on which it ordinarily
preys.

We hung the buck in a tree. The colonel returned,
and not long afterward one of the paddlers who had been
watching the river called out to us that there was a tapir
in the water, a good distance up-stream, and that two of
the other boats were after it. We jumped into the canoe
and the two paddlers dug their blades in the water as
they drove her against the strong current, edging over
for the opposite bank. The tapir was coming down-
stream at a great rate, only its queer head above water,
while the dugouts were closing rapidly on it, the paddlers
uttering loud cries. As the tapir turned slightly to one
side or the other the long, slightly upturned snout and the:
strongly pronounced arch of the crest along the head and
upper neck gave it a marked and unusual aspect. I could
not shoot, for it was directly in line with one of the pur-
suing dugouts. Suddenly it dived, the snout being
slightly curved downward as it did so. There was no
trace of it; we gazed eagerly in all directions; the dugout
in front came alongside our canoe and the paddlers rested,
their paddles ready. Then we made out the tapir clam-
bering up the bank. It had dived at right angles to the
course it was following and swum under water to the very
edge of the shore, rising under the overhanging tree-

Colonel Roosevelt and Colonel Rondon with bush deer.

“We hung the buck in a tree.”

From a photograph by Fiala.

Up the River of Tapirs 143

branches at a point where a drinking-trail for game led
down a break in the bank. The branches partially hid it,
and it was in deep shadow, so that it did not offer a very
good shot. My bullet went into its body too far back, and
the tapir disappeared in the forest at a gallop as if un-
hurt, although the bullet really secured it, by making it
unwilling to trust to its speed and leave the neighborhood
of the water. Three or four of the hounds were by this
time swimming the river, leaving the others yelling on the
opposite side; and as soon as the swimmers reached the
shore they were put on the tapir’s trail and galloped after
it, giving tongue. Ina couple of minutes we saw the tapir
take to the water far up-stream, and after it we went as
fast as the paddles could urge us through the water. We
were not in time to head it, but fortunately some of the
dogs had come down to the river’s edge at the very point
where the tapir was about to land, and turned it back.
Two or three of the dogs were swimming. We were more
than half the breadth of the river away from the tapir,
and somewhat down-stream, when it dived. It made an
astonishingly long swim beneath the water this time,
almost as if it had been a hippopotamus, for it passed
completely under our canoe and rose between us and
the hither bank. I shot it, the bullet going into its brain,
while it was thirty or forty yards from shore. It sank
at once. :

There was now nothing to do but wait until the body
floated. I feared that the strong current would roll it
down-stream over the river bed, but my companions as-
sured me that this was not so, and that the body would
remain where it was until it rose, which would be in an

144 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

hour or two. They were right, except as to the time. For
over a couple of hours we paddled, or anchored ourselves
by clutching branches close to the spot, or else drifted
down a mile and paddled up again near the shore, to see
if the body had caught anywhere. Then we crossed the
river and had lunch at the lovely natural picnic-ground
where the buck was hung up. We had very nearly given
up the tapir when it suddenly floated only a few rods
from where it had sunk. With no little difficulty the big,
round black body was hoisted into the canoe, and we all
turned our prows down-stream. The skies had been low-
ering for some time, and now—too late to interfere with
the hunt or cause us any annoyance—a heavy downpour
of rain came on and beat upon us. Little we cared, as
the canoe raced forward, with the tapir and the buck
lying in the bottom, and a dry, comfortable camp ahead
of us.

When we reached camp, and Father Zahm saw the
tapir, he reminded me of something I had completely for-
gotten. When, some six years previously, he had spoken
to me in the White House about taking this South Ameri-
can trip, I had answered that I could not, as I intended
to go to Africa, but added that I hoped some day to go to
South America and that if I did so I should try to shoot
both a jaguar and a tapir, as they were the characteristic
big-game animals of the country. “Well,” said Father
Zahm, “now you’ve shot them both!’ The storm con-
tinued heavy until after sunset. Then the rain stopped and
the full moon broke through the cloud-rack. Father
Zahm and I walked up and down in the moonlight, talk-
ing of many things, from Dante, and our own plans for

Up the River of Tapirs 145

the future, to the deeds and the wanderings of the old-
time Spanish conquistadores in their search for the Gilded
King, and of the Portuguese adventurers who then di-
vided with them the mastery of the oceans and of the
unknown continents beyond.

This was an attractive and interesting camp in more
ways than one. The vaqueiros with their wives and fami-
lies were housed on the two sides of the field in which our
tents were pitched. On one side was a big, whitewashed,
tile-roofed house in which the foreman dwelt—an olive-
skinned, slightly built, wiry man, with an olive-skinned
wife and eight as pretty, fair-haired children as one could
wish to see. He usually went barefoot, and his manners
were not merely good but distinguished. Corrals and out-
buildings were near this big house. On the opposite side
of the field stood the row of steep-roofed, palm-thatched
huts in which the ordinary cowhands lived with their
dusky helpmeets and children. Each night from these
palm-thatched quarters we heard the faint sounds of a
music that went far back of civilization to a savage ances-
try near by in point of time and otherwise immeasurably
remote; for through the still, hot air, under the brilliant
moonlight, we heard the monotonous throbbing of a tom-
tom drum, and the twanging of some old stringed instru-
ment. The small black turkey-buzzards, here always
called crows, were as tame as chickens near the big house,
walking on the ground or perched in the trees beside the
corral, waiting for the offal of the slaughtered cattle.
Two palm-trees near our tent were crowded with the
long, hanging nests of one of the cacique orioles. We
lived well, with plenty of tapir beef, which was good, and

146 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

venison of the bush deer, which was excellent; and as
much ordinary beef as we wished, and fresh milk, too—
a rarity in this country. There were very few mosquitoes,
and everything was as comfortable as possible.

The tapir I killed was a big one. I did not wish to
kill another, unless, of course, it became advisable to do
so for food; whereas I did wish to get some specimens of
the big, white-lipped peccary, the “queixa” (pronounced
“cashada’”’) of the Brazilians, which would make our col-
lection of the big mammals of the Brazilian forests almost
complete. The remaining members of the party killed
two or three more tapirs. One was a bull, full grown but
very much smaller than the animal I had killed. The
hunters said that this was a distinct kind. The skull and
skin were sent back with the other specimens to the Am-
erican Museum, where after due examination and com-
parison its specific identity will be established. Tapirs are
solitary beasts. Two are rarely found together, except in
the case of a cow and its spotted and streaked calf. They
live in dense cover, usually lying down in the daytime and
at night coming out to feed, and going to the river or to
some lagoon to bathe and swim. From this camp Sigg
took Lieutenant Lyra back to Caceres to get something
that had been overlooked. They went in a rowboat to
which the motor had been attached, and at night on the
way back almost ran over a tapir that was swimming.
But in unfrequented places tapirs both feed and bathe
during the day. The stomach of the one I shot contained
big palm-nuts; they had been swallowed without enough
mastication to break the kernel, the outer pulp being what
the tapir prized. Tapirs gallop well, and their tough hide

Up the River of Tapirs 147

and wedge shape enable them to go at speed through very
dense cover. They try to stamp on, and even to bite, a
foe, but are only clumsy fighters.

The tapir is a very archaic type of ungulate, not un-
like the non-specialized beasts of the oligocene. From
some such ancestral type the highly specialized one-toed
modern horse has evolved, while during the uncounted
ages that saw the horse thus develop the tapir has con-
tinued substantially unchanged. Originally the tapirs
dwelt in the northern hemisphere, but there they grad-
ually died out, the more specialized horse, and even for
long ages the rhinoceros, persisting after they had van-
ished; and nowadays the surviving tapirs are found in
Malaysia and South America, far from their original
home. The relations of the horse and tapir in the pale-
ontological history of South America are very curious.
Both were, geologically speaking, comparatively recent
immigrants, and if they came at different dates it is al-
most certain that the horse came later. The horse for an
age or two, certainly for many hundreds of thousands of
years, throve greatly and developed not only several dif-
ferent species but even different genera. It was much the
most highly specialized of the two, and in the other conti-
nental regions where both were found the horse outlasted
the tapir. But in South America the tapir outlasted the
horse. From unknown causes the various genera and
species of horses died out, while the tapir has persisted.
The highly specialized, highly developed beasts, which
represented such a full evolutionary development, died
out, while their less specialized remote kinsfolk, which
had not developed, clung to life and throve; and this

148 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

although the direct reverse was occurring in North Amer-
ica and in the Old World. It is one of the innumerable
and at present insoluble problems in the history of life
on our planet.

I spent a couple of days of hard work in getting the
big white-lipped peccaries—white-lipped being rather a
misnomer, as the entire under jaw and lower cheek are
white. They were said to be found on the other side of,
and some distance back from, the river. Colonel Rondon
had sent out one of our attendants, an old follower of his,
a full-blood Parecis Indian, to look for tracks. This was
an excellent man, who dressed and behaved just like the
other good men we had, and was called Antonio Parecis,
He found the tracks of a herd of thirty or forty cashadas,
and the following morning we started after them.

On the first day we killed nothing. We were rather
too large a party, for one or two of the visiting fazen-
deiros came along with their dogs. I doubt whether these
men very much wished to overtake our game, for the big
peccary is a murderous foe of dogs (and is sometimes
dangerous to men). One of their number frankly refused
to come or to let his dogs come, explaining that the fierce
wild swine were “very badly brought up” (a literal trans-
lation of his words) and that respectable dogs and men
ought not to go near them. The other fazendeiros merely
feared for their dogs; a groundless fear, I believe, as I do
not think that the dogs could by any exertion have been
dragged into dangerous proximity with such foes. The
ranch foreman, Benedetto, came with us, and two or three
other camaradas, including Antonio, the Parecis Indian.
The horses were swum across the river, each being led

Up the River of Tapirs 149

beside a dugout. Then we crossed with the dogs; our
horses were saddled, and we started.

It was a picturesque cavalcade. The native hunters,
of every shade from white to dark copper, all wore leather
leggings that left the soles of their feet bare, and on their
bare heels wore spurs with wheels four inches across.
They went in single file, for no other mode of travel was
possible; and the two or three leading men kept their
machetes out, and had to cut every yard of our way while
we were in the forest. The hunters rode little stallions,
and their hounds were gelded.

Most of the time we were in forest or swampy jungle.
Part of the time we crossed or skirted marshy plains. In
one of them a herd of half-wild cattle was feeding.
Herons, storks, ducks, and ibises were in these marshes,
and we saw one flock of lovely roseate spoonbills.

In one grove the fig-trees were killing the palms, just
as in Africa they kill the sandalwood-trees. In the gloom
of this grove there were no flowers, no bushes; the air
was heavy; the ground was brown with mouldering
leaves. Almost every palm was serving as a prop for a
fig-tree. The fig-trees were in every stage of growth.
The youngest ones merely ran up the palms as vines. In
the next stage the vine had thickened and was sending
out shoots, wrapping the palm stem in a deadly hold.
Some of the shoots were thrown round the stem like the
tentacles of an immense cuttlefish. Others looked like
claws, that were hooked into every crevice, and round
every projection. In the stage beyond this the palm had
been killed, and its dead carcass appeared between the big,
winding vine-trunks; and later the palm had disappeared

150 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

and the vines had united into a great fig-tree. Wate
stood in black pools at the foot of, the murdered trees, an
of the trees that had murdered them. There was some
thing sinister and evil in the dark stillness of the grove
it seemed as if sentient beings had writhed themselve:
round and were strangling other sentient beings.

We passed through wonderfully beautiful woods oi
tall palms, the ouaouaga palm—wawasa palm, as it shoulc
be spelled in English. The trunks rose tall and strong an¢
slender, and the fronds were branches twenty or thirty
feet long, with the many long, narrow green blades start-
ing from the midrib at right angles in pairs. Round the
ponds stood stately burity palms, rising like huge col-
umns, with great branches that looked like fans, as the
long, stiff blades radiated from the end of the midrib.
One tree was gorgeous with the brilliant hues of a flock
of party-colored macaws. Green parrots flew shrieking
overhead.

Now and then we were bitten and stung by the ven-
omous fire-ants, and ticks crawled upon us. Once we
were assailed by more serious foes, in the shape of a nest
of maribundi wasps, not the biggest kind, but about the
size of our hornets. We were at the time passing through
dense jungle, under tall trees, in a spot where the down
timber, holes, tangled creepers, and thorns made the
going difficult. The leading men were not assailed, al-
though they were now and then cutting the trail. Colonel
Rondon and I were in the middle of the column, and the
swarm attacked us; both of us were badly stung on the
face, neck, and hands, the colonel even more severely than
I was. He wheeled and rode to the rear and I to the

Up the River of Tapirs I51

front; our horses were stung too; and we went at a rate
that a moment previously I would have deemed impossi-
ble over such ground.

At the close of the day, when we were almost back at
the river, the dogs killed a jaguar kitten. There was no
trace of the mother. Some accident must have befallen
her, and the kitten was trying to shift for herself. She
was very emaciated. In her stomach were the remains of
a pigeon and some tendons from the skeleton or dried
carcass of some big animal. The loathsome berni flies,
which deposit eggs in living beings—cattle, dogs, mon-
keys, rodents, men—had been at it. There were seven
huge, white grubs making big abscess-like swellings over
itseyes. These flies deposit their grubs in men. In 1909,
on Colonel Rondon’s hardest trip, every man of the party
had from one to five grubs deposited in him, the fly acting
with great speed, and driving its ovipositor through cloth-
ing. The grubs cause torture; but a couple of cross
cuts with a lancet permit the loathsome creatures to be
squeezed out.

In these forests the multitude of insects that bite,
sting, devour, and prey upon other creatures, often with
accompaniments of atrocious suffering, passes belief. The
very pathetic myth of “beneficent nature” could not de-
ceive even the least wise being if he once saw for himself
the iron cruelty of life in the tropics. Of course “nature”
—in common parlance a wholly inaccurate term, by the
way, especially when used as if to express a single entity
—is entirely ruthless, no less so as regards types than as
tegards individuals, and entirely indifferent to good or

152 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

evil, and works out her ends or no ends with utter dis-
regard of pain and woe.

The following morning at sunrise we started again.
This time only Colonel Rondon and I went with Bene-
detto and Antonio the Indian. We brought along four
dogs which it was fondly hoped might chase the cashadas.
Two of them disappeared on the track of a tapir and we
saw them no more; one of the others promptly fled when
we came across the tracks of our game, and would not
even venture after them in our company; the remaining
one did not actually run away and occasionally gave
tongue, but could not be persuaded to advance unless
there was a man ahead of him. However, Colonel Ron-
don, Benedetto, and Antonio formed a trio of hunters
who could do fairly well without dogs.

After four hours of riding, Benedetto, who was in
the lead, suddenly stopped and pointed downward. We
were riding along a grassy intervale between masses of
forest, and he had found the fresh track of a herd of big
peccaries crossing from left to right. There were appar-
ently thirty or forty in the herd. The small peccaries go
singly or in small parties, and when chased take refuge
in holes or hollow logs, where they show valiant fight;
but the big peccaries go in herds of considerable size, and
are so truculent that they are reluctant to run, and prefer
either to move slowly off chattering their tusks and
grunting, or else actually to charge. Where much perse-
cuted the survivors gradually grow more willing to run,
but their instinct is not to run but to trust to their trucu-
lence and their mass-action for safety. They inflict a fear-
ful bite and frequently kill dogs. They often charge the

Up the River of Tapirs 153

hunters and I have heard of men being badly wounded by
them, while almost every man who hunts them often is
occasionally forced to scramble up a tree to avoid a
charge. But I have never heard of a man being killed by
them. They sometimes surround the tree in which the
man has taken refuge and keep him up it. Cherrie, on
one occasion in Costa Rica, was thus kept up a tree for
several hours by a great herd of three or four hundred
of these peccaries; and this although he killed several of
them. Ordinarily, however, after making their charge
they do not turn, but pass on out of sight. Their great
foe is the jaguar, but unless he exercises much caution
they will turn the tables on him. Cherrie, also in Costa
Rica, came on the body of a jaguar which had evi-
dently been killed by a herd of peccaries some twenty-
four hours previously. The ground was trampled up
by their hoofs, and the carcass was rent and slit into
pieces.

Benedetto, as soon as we discovered the tracks, slipped
off his horse, changed his leggings for sandals, threw his
rifle over his arm, and took the trail of the herd, followed
by the only dog which would accompany him. The pec-
caries had gone into a broad belt of forest, with a marsh
on the farther side. At first Antonio led the colonel and
me, all of us on horseback, at a canter round this belt to
the marsh side, thinking the peccaries had gone almost
through it. But we could hear nothing. The dog only
occasionally barked, and then not loudly. Finally we
heard a shot. Benedetto had found the herd, which
showed no fear of him; he had backed out and fired a
signal shot. We all three went into the forest on foot

154 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

toward where the shot had been fired. It was dense jun-
gle and stiflingly hot. We could not see clearly for more
than a few feet, or move easily without free use of the
machetes. Soon we heard the ominous groaning of the
herd, in front of us, and almost on each side. Then
Benedetto joined us, and the dog appeared in the rear.
We moved slowly forward, toward the sound of the fierce
moaning grunts which were varied at times by a castanet
chattering of the tusks. Then we dimly made out the
dark forms of the peccaries moving very slowly to the
left. My companions each chose a tree to climb at need
and pointed out one for me. I fired at the half-seen form
of a hog, through the vines, leaves, and branches; the
colonel fired; I fired three more shots at other hogs; and
the Indian also fired. The peccaries did not charge;
walking and trotting, with bristles erect, groaning and
clacking their tusks, they disappeared into the jungle. We
could not see one of them clearly; and not one was left
dead. But a few paces on we came across one of my
wounded ones, standing at bay by a palm trunk; and I
killed it forthwith. The dog would not even trail the
wounded ones; but here Antonio came to the front. With
eyes almost as quick and sure as those of a wild beast he
had watched after every shot, and was able to tell the re-
sults in each case. He said that in addition to the one I
had just killed I had wounded two others so seriously that
he did not think they would go far, and that Colonel Ron-
don and he himself had each badly wounded one; and,
moreover, he showed the trails each wounded animal had
taken. The event justified him. In a few minutes we
found my second one dead. Then we found Antonio’s.

Up the River of Tapirs 155

Then we found my third one alive and at bay, and I killed
it with another bullet. Finally we found the colonel’s. I
told him I should ask the authorities of the American
museum to mount his and one or two of mine in a group,
to commemorate our hunting together.

If we had not used crippling rifles the peccaries might
have gotten away, for in the dark jungle, with the masses
of intervening leaves and branches, it was impossible to
be sure of placing each bullet properly in the half-seen
moving beast. We found where the herd had wallowed
in the mud. ‘The stomachs of the peccaries we killed con-
tained wild figs, palm nuts, and bundles of root fibres.
The dead beasts were covered with ticks. They were at
least twice the weight of the smaller peccaries.

On the ride home we saw a buck of the small species
of bush deer, not half the size of the kind I had already
shot. It was only a patch of red in the bush, a good dis-
tance off, but I was lucky enough to hit it. In spite of its
small size it was a full-grown male, of a species we had
not yet obtained. The antlers had recently been shed, and
the new antler growth had just begun. A great jabiru
stork let us ride by him a hundred and fifty yards off
without thinking it worth while to take flight. This day
we saw many of the beautiful violet orchids; and in the
swamps were multitudes of flowers, red, yellow, lilac, of
which I did not know the names.

I alluded above to the queer custom these people in
the interior of Brazil have of gelding their hunting-dogs.
This absurd habit is doubtless the chief reason why there
are so few hounds worth their salt in the more serious
kinds of hunting, where the quarry is the jaguar or big

156 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

peccary. Thus far we had seen but one dog as good as
the ordinary cougar hound or bear hound in such packs
as those with which I had hunted in the Rockies and in
the cane-brakes of the lower Mississippi. It can hardly
be otherwise when every dog that shows himself worth
anything is promptly put out of the category of breeders
—the theory apparently being that the dog will then last
longer. All the breeding is from worthless dogs, and no
dog of proved worth leaves descendants.

The country along this river is a fine natural cattle
country, and some day it will surely see a great develop-
ment. It was opened to development by Colonel Rondon
only five or six years ago. Already an occasional cattle-
ranch is to be found along the banks. When railroads are
built into these interior portions of Matto Grosso the
whole region will grow and thrive amazingly—and so will
the railroads. The growth will not be merely material.
An immense amount will be done in education; using the
word education in its broadest and most accurate sense, as
applying to both mind and spirit, to both the child and the
man. Colonel Rondon is not merely an explorer. He has
been and is now a leader in the movement for the vital
betterment of his people, the people of Matto Grosso.
The poorer people of the back country everywhere suffer
because of the harsh and improper laws of debt. In prac-
tice these laws have resulted in establishing a system of
peonage, such as has grown up here and there in our own
nation. A radical change is needed in this matter; and
the colonel is fighting for the change. In school matters
the colonel has precisely the ideas of our wisest and most
advanced men and women in the United States. Cherrie

Up the River of Tapirs 157

—who is not only an exceedingly efficient naturalist and
explorer in the tropics, but is also a thoroughly good
citizen at home—is the chairman of the school board of
the town of Newfane, in Vermont. He and the colonel,
and Kermit and I, talked over school matters at length,
and were in hearty accord as to the vital educational needs
of both Brazil and the United States: the need of com-
bining industrial with purely mental training, and the
need of having the wide-spread popular education, which
is and must be supported and paid for by the government,
made a purely governmental and absolutely nonsectarian
function, administered by the state alone, without inter-
ference with, nor furtherance of, the beliefs of any
reputable church. The colonel is also head of the Indian
service of Brazil, being what corresponds roughly with
our commissioner of Indian affairs. Here also he is tak-
ing the exact view that is taken in the United States by
the stanchest and wisest friends of the Indians. The
Indians must be treated with intelligent and sympathetic
understanding, no less than with justice and firmness;
and until they become citizens, absorbed into the general
body politic, they must be the wards of the nation, and
not of any private association, lay or clerical, no matter
how well-meaning.

The Sepotuba River was scientifically explored and
mapped for the first time by Colonel Rondon in 1908, as
head of the Brazilian Telegraphic Commission. This was
during the second year of his exploration and opening of
the unknown northwestern wilderness of Matto Grosso.
Most of this wilderness had never previously been trodden
by the foot of a civilized man. Not only were careful

158 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

maps made and much other scientific work accomplished,
but posts were established and telegraph-lines constructed.
When Colonel Rondon began the work he was a major.
He was given two promotions, to lieutenant-colonel and
colonel, while absent in the wilderness. His longest and
most important exploring trip, and the one fraught with
most danger and hardship, was begun by him in 1909, on
May 3d, the anniversary of the discovery of Brazil. He
left Tapirapoan on that day, and he reached the Madeira
River on Christmas, December 25, of the same year, hav-
ing descended the Gy-Parana. The mouth of this river
had long been known, but its upper course for half its
length was absolutely unknown when Rondon descended
it. Among those who took part under him in this piece of
exploration were the present Captain Amilcar and Lieu-
tenant Lyra; and two better or more efficient men for
such wilderness work it would be impossible to find. They
acted as his two chief assistants on our trip. In 1909 the
party exhausted all their food, including even the salt, by
August. For the last four months they lived exclusively
on the game they killed, on fruits, and on wild honey.
Their equipage was what the men could carry on their
backs. By the time the party reached the Madeira they
were worn out by fatigue, exposure, and semi-starvation,
and their enfeebled bodies were racked by fever.

The work of exploration accomplished by Colonel
Rondon and his associates during these years was as re-
markable as, and in its results even more important than,
any similar work undertaken elsewhere on the globe at or
about the same time. Its value was recognized in Brazil.

Up the River of Tapirs 159

It received no recognition by the geographical societies of
Europe or the United States.

The work done by the original explorers of such a wil-
derness necessitates the undergoing of untold hardship
and danger. Their successors, even their immediate suc-
cessors, have a relatively easy time. Soon the road be-
comes so well beaten that it can be traversed without
hardship by any man who does not venture from it—
although if he goes off into the wilderness for even a day,
hunting or collecting, he will have a slight taste of what
his predecessors endured. The wilderness explored by
Colonel Rondon is not yet wholly subdued, and still holds
menace to human life. At Caceres he received notice of
the death of one of his gallant subordinates, Captain Car-
dozo. He died from beriberi, far out in the wilderness
along our proposed line of march. Colonel Rondon also
received news that a boat ascending the Gy-Parana, to
carry provisions to meet those of our party who were to
descend that stream, had been upset, the provisions lost,
and three men drowned. The risk and hardship are such
that the ordinary men, the camaradas, do not like to go
into the wilderness. The men who go with the Tele-
graphic Commission on the rougher and wilder work are
paid seven times as much as they earn in civilization. On
this trip of ours Colonel Rondon met with much difficulty
in securing some one who could cook. He asked the cook
on the little steamer Nyoac to go with us; but the cook
with unaffected horror responded: “Senhor, J have never
done anything to deserve punishment!”

Five days after leaving us, the launch, with one of the
native trading-boats lashed alongside, returned. On the

160 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

13th we broke camp, loaded ourselves and all our belong-
ings on the launch and the house-boat, and started up-
stream for Tapirapoan. All told there were about thirty
men, with five dogs and tents, bedding and provisions;
fresh beef, growing rapidly less fresh; skins—all and
everything jammed together.

It rained most of the first day and part of the first
night. After that the weather was generally overcast and
pleasant for travelling; but sometimes rain and torrid
sunshine alternated. The cooking—and it was good
cooking—was done at a funny little open-air fireplace,
with two or three cooking-pots placed at the stern of the
house-boat.

The fireplace was a platform of earth, taken from ant-
hills, and heaped and spread on the boards of the boat.
Around it the dusky cook worked with philosophic solem-
nity in rain and shine. Our attendants, friendly souls
with skins of every shade and hue, slept most of the time,
curled up among boxes, bundles, and slabs of beef. An
enormous land turtle was tethered toward the bow of the
house-boat. When the men slept too near it, it made
futile efforts to scramble over them; and in return now
and then one of them gravely used it for a seat.

Slowly the throbbing engine drove the launch and its
unwieldy side-partner against the swift current. The
river had risen. We made about a mile and a half an
hour. Ahead of us the brown water street stretched in
curves between endless walls of dense tropical forest. It
was like passing through a gigantic greenhouse. Wawasa
and burity palms, cecropias, huge figs, feathery bamboos,
strange yellow-stemmed trees, low trees with enormous

Up the River of Tapirs 161

leaves, tall trees with foliage as delicate as lace, trees with
buttressed trunks, trees with boles rising smooth and
straight to lofty heights, all woven together by a tangle
of vines, crowded down to the edge of the river. Their
drooping branches hung down to the water, forming a
screen through which it was impossible to see the bank,
and exceedingly difficult to penetrate to the bank. Rarely
one of them showed flowers—large white blossoms, or
small red or yellow blossoms. More often the lilac flow-
ers of the begonia-vine made large patches of color. In-
numerable epiphytes covered the limbs, and even grew on
the roughened trunks. We saw little bird life—a darter
now and then, and kingfishers flitting from perch to perch.
At long intervals we passed a ranch. At one the large,
red-tiled, whitewashed house stood on a grassy slope be-
hind mango-trees. The wooden shutters were thrown
back from the unglazed windows, and the big rooms were
utterly bare—not a book, not an ornament. A palm,
loaded with scores of the pendulous nests of the trou-
pials, stood near the door. Behind were orange-trees and
coffee-plants, and near by fields of bananas, rice, and
tobacco. The sallow foreman was courteous and hospi-
table. His dark-skinned women-folk kept in the furtive
background. Like most of the ranches, it was owned by
a company with headquarters at Caceres.

The trip was pleasant and interesting, although there
was not much to do on the boat. It was too crowded to
move around save with a definite purpose. We enjoyed
the scenery; we talked—in English, Portuguese, bad
French, and broken German. Some of us wrote. Fiala
made sketches of improved tents, hammocks, and other

162 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

field equipment, suggested by what he had already seen.
Some of us read books. Colonel Rondon, neat, trim,
alert, and soldierly, studied a standard work on applied
geographical astronomy. Father Zahm read a novel by
Fogazzaro. Kermit read Camoens and a couple of Bra-
zilian novels, “O Guarani” and “Innocencia.” My own
reading varied from “Quentin Durward” and Gibbon to
the “Chanson de Roland.” Miller took out his little pet
owl Moses, from the basket in which Moses dwelt, and
gave him food and water. Moses crooned and chuckled
gratefully when he was stroked and tickled.

Late the first evening we moored to the bank by a
little fazenda of the poorer type. The houses were of
palm-leaves. Even the walls were made of the huge
fronds or leafy branches of the wawasa palm, stuck up-
right in the ground and the blades plaited together. Some
of us went ashore. Some stayed on the boats. There
were no mosquitoes, the weather was not oppressively
hot, and we slept well. By five o’clock next morning we
had each drunk a cup of delicious Brazilian coffee, and
the boats were under way.

All day we steamed slowly up-stream. We passed two
or three fazendas. At one, where we halted to get milk,
the trees were overgrown with pretty little yellow orchids.
At dark we moored at a spot where there were no
branches to prevent our placing the boats directly along-
side the bank. There were hardly any mosquitoes. Most
of the party took their hammocks ashore, and the camp
was pitched amid singularly beautiful surroundings. The
trees were wawasa palms, some with the fronds cresting
very tall trunks, some with the fronds—seemingly longer

Up the River of Tapirs 163

—trising almost from the ground. The fronds were of
great length ; some could not have been less than fifty feet
long. Bushes and tall grass, dew-drenched and glittering
with the green of emeralds, grew in the open spaces be-
tween. We left at sunrise the following morning. One
of the sailors had strayed inland. He got turned round
and could not find the river ; and we started before discov-
ering his absence. We stopped at once, and with much
difficulty he forced his way through the vine-laced and
thorn-guarded jungle toward the sound of the launch’s
engines and of the bugle which was blown. In this dense
jungle, when the sun is behind clouds, a man without a
compass who strays a hundred yards from the river may
readily become hopelessly lost.

As we ascended the river the wawasa palms became
constantly more numerous. At this point, for many
miles, they gave their own character to the forest on the
river banks. Everywhere their long, curving fronds rose
among the other trees, and in places their lofty trunks
made them hold their heads higher than the other trees.
But they were never as tall as the giants among the ordi-
nary trees. On one towering palm we noticed a mass of
beautiful violet orchids growing from the side of the
trunk, half-way to the top. On another big tree, not a
palm, which stood in a little opening, there hung well over
a hundred troupials’ nests. Besides two or three small
ranches we this day passed a large ranch. The various
houses and sheds, all palm-thatched, stood by the river
in a big space of cleared ground, dotted with wawasa
palms. A native house-boat was moored by the bank.
Women and children looked from the unglazed windows

164 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

of the houses; men stood in front of them. The biggest
house was enclosed by a stockade of palm-logs, thrust
end-on into the ground. Cows and oxen grazed round
about; and carts with solid wheels, each wheel made of a
single disk of wood, were tilted on their poles.

We made our noonday halt on an island where very
tall trees grew, bearing fruits that were pleasant to the
taste. Other trees on the island were covered with rich
red and yellow blossoms; and masses of delicate blue
flowers and of star-shaped white flowers grew underfoot.
Hither and thither across the surface of the river flew
swallows, with so much white in their plumage that as
they flashed in the sun they seemed to have snow-white
bodies, borne by dark wings. The current of the river
grew swifter; there were stretches of broken water that
were almost rapids; the laboring engine strained and
sobbed as with increasing difficulty it urged forward the
launch and her clumsy consort. At nightfall we moored
beside the bank, where the forest was open enough to
permit a comfortable camp. That night the ants ate large
holes in Miller’s mosquito-netting, and almost devoured
his socks and shoe-laces.

At sunrise we again started. There were occasional
stretches of swift, broken water, almost rapids, in the
river ; everywhere the current was swift, and our progress
was slow. The prancha was towed at the end of a haw-
ser, and her crew poled. Even thus we only just made
the riffle in more than one case. Two or three times
cormorants and snake-birds, perched on snags in the river
or on trees alongside it, permitted the boat to come within
a few yards. In one piece of high forest we saw a party

Up the River of Tapirs 165

of toucans, conspicuous even among the tree tops because
of their huge bills and the leisurely expertness with which
they crawled, climbed, and hopped among the branches.
We went by several fazendas.

Shortly before noon— January 16—we reached
Tapirapoan, the headquarters of the Telegraphic Com-
mission. It was an attractive place, on the river-front,
and it was gayly bedecked with flags, not only those of
Brazil and the United States, but of all the other Ameri-
can republics, in our honor. There was a large, green
square, with trees standing in the middle of it. On one
side of this square were the buildings of the Telegraphic
Commission, on the other those of a big ranch, of which
this is the headquarters. In addition, there were stables,
sheds, outhouses, and corrals; and there were cultivated
fields near by. Milch cows, beef-cattle, oxen, and mules
wandered almost at will. There were two or three
wagons and carts, and a traction automobile, used in the
construction of the telegraph-line, but not available in the
rainy season, at the time of our trip.

Here we were to begin our trip overland, on pack-
mules and pack-oxen, scores of which had been gathered
to meet us. Several days were needed to apportion the
loads and arrange for the several divisions in which it was
necessary that so large a party should attempt the long
wilderness march, through a country where there was not
much food for man or beast, and where it was always
possible to run into a district in which fatal cattle or
horse diseases were prevalent. Fiala, with his usual effi-
ciency, took charge of handling the outfit of the Ameri-
can portion of the expedition, with Sigg as an active and

166 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

useful assistant. Harper, who like the others worked with
whole-hearted zeal and cheerfulness, also helped him, ex-
cept when he was engaged in helping the naturalists. The
two latter, Cherrie and Miller, had so far done the hardest
and the best work of the expedition. They had collected
about a thousand birds and two hundred and fifty mam-
mals. It was not probable that they would do as well
during the remainder of our trip, for we intended thence-
forth to halt as little, and march as steadily, as the coun-
try, the weather, and the condition of our means of trans-
portation permitted. I kept continually wishing that they
had more time in which to study the absorbingly inter-
esting life-histories of the beautiful and wonderful beasts
and birds we were all the time seeing. Every first-rate
museum must still employ competent collectors; but I
think that a museum could now confer most lasting bene-
fit, and could do work of most permanent good, by send-
ing out into the immense wildernesses, where wild nature
is at her best, trained observers with the gift of recording
what they have observed. Such men should be collectors,
for collecting is still necessary; but they should also, and
indeed primarily, be able themselves to see, and to set
vividly before the eyes of others, the full life-histories of
the creatures that dwell in the waste spaces of the world.

At this point both Cherrie and Miller collected a
number of mammals and birds which they had not pre-
viously obtained; whether any were new to science could
only be determined after the specimens reached the
American Museum. While making the round of his small
mammal traps one morning, Miller encountered an army
of the formidable foraging ants. The species was a large

Up the River of Tapirs 167

black one, moving with a well-extended front. These
ants, sometimes called army-ants, like the driver-ants of
Africa, move in big bodies and destroy or make prey of
every living thing that is unable or unwilling to get out
of their path in time. They run fast, and everything
runs away from their advance. Insects form theit chief
prey; and the most dangerous and aggressive lower-life
creatures make astonishingly little resistance to them.
Miller’s attention was first attracted to this army of ants
by noticing a big centiped, nine or ten inches long, trying
to flee before them. A number of ants were biting it,
and it writhed at each bite, but did not try to use its
long curved jaws against its assailants. On other occa-
sions he saw big scorpions and big hairy spiders trying
to escape in the same way, and showing the same help-
less inability to injure their ravenous foes, or to defend
themselves. The ants climb trees to a great height, much
higher than most birds’ nests, and at once kill and tear
to pieces any fledglings in the nests they reach. But they
are not as common as some writers seem to imagine; days
may elapse before their armies are encountered, and
doubtless most nests are never visited or threatened by
them. In some instances it seems likely that the birds
save themselves and their young in other ways. Some
nests are inaccessible. From others it is probable that
the parents remove the young. Miller once, in Guiana,
had been watching for some days a nest of ant-wrens
which contained young. Going thither one morning, he
found the tree, and the nest itself, swarming with forag-
ing ants. He at first thought that the fledglings had
been devoured, but he soon saw the parents, only about

168 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

thirty yards off, with food in their beaks. They were
engaged in entering a dense part of the jungle, coming
out again without food in their beaks, and soon reap-
pearing once more with food. Miller never found their
new nests, but their actions left him certain that they
were feeding their young, which they must have them-
selves removed from the old nest. These ant-wrens hover
in front of and over the columns of foraging ants, feed-
ing not only on the other insects aroused by the ants, but
on the ants themselves. This fact has been doubted; but
Miller has shot them with the ants in their bills and in
their stomachs. Dragon-flies, in numbers, often hover
over the columns, darting down at them; Miller could
not be certain he had seen them actually seizing the ants,
but this was his belief. I have myself seen these ants
plunder a nest of the dangerous and highly aggressive
wasps, while the wasps buzzed about in great excitement,
but seemed unable effectively to retaliate. I have also
seen them clear a sapling tenanted by their kinsmen, the
poisonous red ants, or fire-ants; the fire-ants fought and
T have no doubt injured or killed some of their swarming
and active black foes; but the latter quickly did away
with them. I have only come across black foraging ants;
but there are red species. They attack human beings
precisely as they attack all animals, and precipitate flight
is the only resort.

Around our camp here butterflies of gorgeous color-
ing swarmed, and there were many fungi as delicately
shaped and tinted as flowers. The scents in the woods
were wonderful. There were many whippoorwills, or
rather Brazilian birds related to them; they uttered at

Up the River of Tapirs 169

intervals through the night a succession of notes sug-
gesting both those of our whippoorwill and those of our
big chuck-will’s-widow of the Gulf States, but not identi-
cal with either. There were other birds which were
nearly akin to familiar birds of the United States: a dull-
colored catbird, a dull-colored robin, and a sparrow be-
longing to the same genus as our common song-sparrow
and sweetheart sparrow; Miller had heard this sparrow
singing by day and night, fourteen thousand feet up on
the Andes, and its song suggested the songs of both of
our sparrows. There were doves and wood-peckers of
various species. Other birds bore no resemblance to
any of ours. One honey-creeper was a perfect little
gem, with plumage that was black, purple, and turquoise,
and brilliant scarlet feet. Two of the birds which
Cherrie and Miller procured were of extraordinary nest-
ing habits. One, a nunlet, in shape resembles a short-
tailed bluebird. It is plumbeous, with a fulvous belly
and white tail coverts. It is a stupid little bird, and does
not like to fly away even when shot at. It catches its
prey and ordinarily acts like a rather dull flycatcher,
perching on some dead tree, swooping on insects and
then returning to its perch, and never going on the
ground to feed or run about. But it nests in burrows
which it digs itself, one bird usually digging, while the
other bird perches in a bush near by. Sometimes these
burrows are in the side of a sand-bank, the sand being
so loose that it is a marvel that it does not cave in. Some-
times the burrows are in the level plain, running down
about three feet, and then rising at an angle. The nest
consists of a few leaves and grasses, and the eggs are

170 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

white. The other bird, called a nun or waxbill, is about
the size of a thrush, grayish in color, with a waxy red
bill. It also burrows in the level soil, the burrow being
five feet long; and over the mouth of the burrow it heaps
a pile of sticks and leaves.

At this camp the heat was great—from 91° to 104°
Fahrenheit—and the air very heavy,. being saturated with
moisture; and there were many rain-storms. But there
were no mosquitoes, and we were very comfortable.
Thanks to the neighborhood of the ranch, we fared sump-
tuously, with plenty of beef, chickens, and fresh milk.
Two of the Brazilian dishes were delicious: canja, a thick
soup of chicken and rice, the best soup a hungry man
ever tasted; and beef chopped in rather small pieces and
served with a well-flavored but simple gravy. The mule
allotted me as a riding-beast was a powerful animal, with
easy gaits. The Brazilian Government had waiting for
me a very handsome silver-mounted saddle and bridle;
I was much pleased with both. However, my exceeding-
ly rough and shabby clothing made an incongruous
contrast.

At Tapirapoan we broke up our baggage—as well as
our party. We sent forward the Canadian canoe—
which, with the motor-engine and some kerosene, went
in a cart drawn by six oxen—and a hundred sealed tin
cases of provisions, each containing rations for a day for
six men. They had been put up in New York under the
special direction of Fiala, for use when we got where we
wished to take good and varied food in small compass.
All the skins, skulls, and alcoholic specimens, and all the
baggage not absolutely necessary, were sent back down

Up the River of Tapirs 171

the Paraguay and to New York, in charge of Harper.
The separate baggage-trains, under the charge of Cap-
tain Amilcar, were organized to go in. one detachment.
The main body of the expedition, consisting of the
American members, and of Colonel Rondon, Lieutenant
Lyra, and Doctor Cajazeira, with their baggage and pro-
visions, formed another detachment.

CHAPTER VI

THROUGH THE HIGHLAND WILDER-=-
NESS OF WESTERN BRAZIL

E were now in the land of the bloodsucking

\ \ bats, the vampire bats that suck the blood of
living creatures, clinging to or hovering against

the shoulder of a horse or cow, or the hand or foot of a
sleeping man, and making a wound from which the blood
continues to flow long after the bat’s thirst has been
satiated. At Tapirapoan there were milch cattle; and
one of the calves turned up one morning weak from loss
of blood, which was still trickling from a wound, for-
ward of the shoulder, made by a bat. But the bats do
little damage in this neighborhood compared to what
they do in some other places, where not only the mules
and cattle but the chickens have to be housed behind bat-
proof protection at night or their lives may pay the
penalty. The chief and habitual offenders are various
species of rather small bats; but it is said that other kinds
of Brazilian bats seem to have become, at least sporadi-
cally and locally, affected by the evil example and occa-
sionally vary their customary diet by draughts of living
blood. One of the Brazilian members of our party,
Hoehne, the botanist, was a zoologist also. He informed
me that he had known even the big fruit-eating bats to

172

The Highland Wilderness 173

take to bloodsucking. They did not, according to his
observations, themselves make the original wound; but
after it had been made by one of the true vampires they
would lap the flowing blood and enlarge the wound.
South America makes up for its lack, relatively to Africa
and India, of large man-eating carnivores by the extraor-
dinary ferocity or bloodthirstiness of certain small crea-
tures of which the kinsfolk elsewhere are harmless. It is
only here that fish no bigger than trout kill swimmers,
and bats the size of the ordinary “flittermice” of the
northern hemisphere drain the life-blood of big beasts
and of man himself.

There was not much large mammalian life in the
neighborhood. Kermit hunted industriously and brought
in an occasional armadillo, coati, or agouti for the natur-
alists. Miller trapped rats and a queer opossum new to
the collection. Cherrie got many birds. Cherrie and
Miller skinned their specimens in a little open hut or shed.
Moses, the small pet owl, sat on a cross-bar overhead, an
interested spectator, and chuckled whenever he was pet-
ted. Two wrens, who bred just outside the hut, were
much excited by the presence of Moses, and paid him
visits of noisy unfriendliness. The little white-throated
sparrows came familiarly about the palm cabins and
whitewashed houses and trilled on the rooftrees. It was
a simple song, with just a hint of our northern white-
throat’s sweet and plaintive melody, and of the opening
bars of our song-sparrow’s pleasant, homely lay. It
brought back dear memories of glorious April mornings
on Long Island, when through the singing of robin and
song-sparrow comes the piercing cadence of the meadow-

174 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

lark; and of the far northland woods in June, fragrant
with the breath of pine and balsam-fir, where sweetheart
sparrows sing from wet spruce thickets and rapid brooks
rush under the drenched and swaying alder-boughs.

From Tapirapoan our course lay northward up to and
across the Plan Alto, the highland wilderness of Brazil.
From the edges of this highland country, which is geolog-
ically very ancient, the affluents of the Amazon to the
north, and of the Plate to the south, flow, with immense
and devious loops and windings.

Two days before we ourselves started with our mule-
train, a train of pack-oxen left, loaded with provisions,
tools, and other things, which we would not need until,
after a month or six weeks, we began our descent into
the valley of the Amazon. There were about seventy
oxen. Most of them were well broken, but there were
about a score which were either not broken at all or else
very badly broken. These were loaded with much diffi-
culty, and bucked like wild broncos. Again and again
they scattered their loads over the corral and over the
first part of the road. The pack-men, however—copper-
colored, black, and dusky-white—were not only masters
of their art, but possessed tempers that could not be
ruffled ; when they showed severity it was because severity
was needed, and not because they were angry. They
finally got all their longhorned beasts loaded and started
on the trail with them.

On January 21 we ourselves started, with the mule-
train. Of course, as always in such a journey, there was
some confusion before the men and the animals of the
train settled down to the routine performance of duty.

The Highland Wilderness 175

In addition to the pack-animals we all had riding-mules.
The first day we journeyed about twelve miles, then cross-
ing the Sepotuba and camping beside it, below a series of
falls, or rather rapids. The country was level. It was a
great natural pasture, covered with a very open forest of
low, twisted trees, bearing a superficial likeness to the
cross-timbers of Texas and Oklahoma. It is as well fitted
for stock-raising as Oklahoma; and there is also much
fine agricultural land, while the river will ultimately yield
electric power. It is a fine country for settlement. The
heat is great at noon; but the nights are not uncom-
fortable. We were supposed to be in the middle of the
rainy season, but hitherto most of the days had been fine,
varied with showers. The astonishing thing was the
absence of mosquitoes. Insect pests that work by day
can be stood, and especially by settlers, because they are
far less serious foes in the clearings than in the woods.
The mosquitoes and other night foes offer the really
serious and unpleasant problem, because they break one’s
rest. Hitherto, during our travels up the Paraguay and
its tributaries, in this level, marshy tropical region of
western Brazil, we had practically not been bothered by
mosquitoes at all, in our home camps. Out in the woods
they were at times a serious nuisance, and Cherrie and
Miller had been subjected to real torment by them during
some of their special expeditions; but there were prac-
tically none on the ranches and in our camps in the open
fields by the river, even when marshes were close by. I
was puzzled—and delighted—by their absence. Settlers
need not be deterred from coming to this region by the
fear of insect foes.

176 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

This does not mean that there are not such foes. Out-
side of the clearings, and of the beaten tracks of travel,
they teem. There are ticks, poisonous ants, wasps—of
which some species are really serious menaces—biting
flies and gnats. I merely mean that, unlike so many other
tropical regions, this particular region is, from the stand-
point of the settler and the ordinary traveller, relatively
free from insect pests, and a pleasant place of residence.
The original explorer, and to an only less degree the hard-
working field naturalist or big-game hunter, have to face
these pests, just as they have to face countless risks, hard-
ships, and difficulties. This is inherent in their several
professions or avocations. Many regions in the United
States where life is now absolutely comfortable and easy-
going offered most formidable problems to the first ex-
plorers a century or two ago. We must not fall into the
foolish error of thinking that the first explorers need not
suffer terrible hardships, merely because the ordinary
travellers, and even the settlers who come after them, do
not have to endure such danger, privation, and wearing
fatigue—although the first among the genuine settlers
also have to undergo exceedingly trying experiences. The
early explorers and adventurers make fairly well-beaten
trails at heavy cost to themselves. Ordinary travellers,
with little discomfort and no danger, can then traverse
these trails; but it is incumbent on them neither to boast
of their own experiences nor to misjudge the efforts of
the pioneers because, thanks to these very efforts, their
own lines fall in pleasant places. The ordinary traveller,
who never goes off the beaten route and who on this
beaten route is carried by others, without himself doing

The Highland Wilderness 1

anything or risking anything, does not need to show much
more initiative and intelligence than an express package.
He does nothing; others do all the work, show all the
forethought, take all the risk—and are entitled to all the
credit. He and his valise are carried in practically the
same fashion; and for each the achievement stands about
on the same plane. If this kind of traveller is a writer,
he can of course do admirable work, work of the highest
value; but the value comes because he is a writer and
observer, not because of any particular credit that at-
taches to him as a traveller. We all recognize this truth
as far as highly civilized regions are concerned: when
Bryce writes of the American commonwealth, or Lowell
of European legislative assemblies, our admiration is for
the insight and thought of the observer, and we are not
concerned with his travels. When a man travels across
Arizona in a Pullman car, we do not think of him as
having performed a feat bearing even the most remote
resemblance to the feats of the first explorers of those
waterless wastes; whatever admiration we feel in con-
nection with his trip is reserved for the traffic-superin-
tendent, engineer, fireman, and brakeman. But as re-
gards the less-known continents, such as South America,
we sometimes fail to remember these obvious truths.
There yet remains plenty of exploring work to be done
in South America, as hard, as dangerous, and almost as
important as any that has already been done; work such
as has recently been done, or is now being done, by men
and women such as Haseman, Farrabee, and Miss Sneth-
lage. The collecting naturalists who go into the wilds
and do first-class work encounter every kind of risk and

178 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

undergo every kind of hardship and exertion. Explorers
and naturalists of the right type have open to them in
South America a field of extraordinary attraction and
difficulty. But to excavate ruins that have already long
been known, to visit out-of-the-way towns that date from
colonial days, to traverse old, even if uncomfortable,
routes of travel, or to ascend or descend highway rivers
like the Amazon, the Paraguay, and the lower Orinoco—
all of these exploits are well worth performing, but they
in no sense represent exploration or adventure, and they
do not entitle the performer, no matter how well he
writes and no matter how much of real value he con-
tributes to human knowledge, to compare himself in any
way with the real wilderness wanderer, or to criticise the
latter. Such a performance entails no hardship or diffi-
culty worth heeding. Its value depends purely on ob-
servation, not on action. The man does little; he merely
records what he sees. He is only the man of the beaten
routes. The true wilderness wanderer, on the contrary,
must be a man of action as well as of observation. He
must have the heart and the body to do and to endure,
no less than the eye to see and the brain to note and
record.

Let me make it clear that I am not depreciating the
excellent work of so many of the men who have not gone
off the beaten trails. I merely wish to make it plain that
this excellent work must not be put in the class with that
of the wilderness explorer. It is excellent work, never-
theless, and has its place, just as the work of the true
explorer has its place. Both stand in sharpest con-
trast with the actions of those alleged explorers, among

The Highland Wilderness 179

whom Mr. Savage Landor stands in unpleasant prom-
inence.

From the Sepotuba rapids our course at the outset lay
westward. The first day’s march away from the river
lay through dense tropical forest. Away from the broad,
beaten route every step of a man’s progress represented
slashing a trail with the machete through the tangle of
bushes, low trees, thorny scrub, and interlaced creepers.
There were palms of new kinds, very tall, slender,
straight, and graceful, with rather short and few fronds.
The wild plantains, or pacovas, thronged the spaces
among the trunks of the tall trees; their boles were short,
and their broad, erect leaves gigantic; they bore brilliant
red-and-orange flowers. There were trees whose trunks
bellied into huge swellings. There were towering trees
with buttressed trunks, whose leaves made a fretwork
against the sky far overhead. Gorgeous red-and-green
trogons, with long tails, perched motionless on the lower
branches and uttered a loud, thrice-repeated whistle. We
heard the calling of the false bell-bird, which is gray in-
stead of white like the true bell-birds; it keeps among
the very topmost branches. Heavy rain fell shortly after
we reached our camping-place.

Next morning at sunrise we climbed a steep slope to
the edge of the Parecis plateau, at a level of about two
thousand feet above the sea. We were on the Plan
Alto, the high central plain of Brazil, the healthy land
of dry air, of cool nights, of clear, running brooks. The
sun was directly behind us when we topped the rise.
Reining in, we looked back over the vast Paraguayan
marshes, shimmering in the long morning lights. Then,

180 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

turning again, we rode forward, casting shadows far be-
fore us. It was twenty miles to the next water, and in
hot weather the journey across this waterless, shadeless,
sandy stretch of country is hard on the mules and oxen.
But on this day the sky speedily grew overcast and a
cool wind blew in our faces as we travelled at a quick,
running walk over the immense rolling plain. The ground
was sandy; it was covered with grass and with a sparse
growth of stunted, twisted trees, never more than a few
feet high. There were rheas— ostriches—and small
pampas-deer on this plain; the coloration of the rheas
made it difficult to see them at a distance, whereas the
bright red coats of the little deer, and their uplifted flags
as they ran, advertised them afar off. We also saw the
footprints of cougars and of the small-toothed, big, red
wolf. Cougars are the most inveterate enemies of these
small South American deer, both those of the open grassy
plain and those of the forest.

It is not nearly as easy to get lost on these open
plains as in the dense forest; and where there is a long,
reasonably straight road or river to come back to, a man
even without a compass is safe. But in these thick
South American forests, especially on cloudy days, a
compass is an absolute necessity. We were struck by
the fact that the native hunters and ranchmen on such
days continually lost themselves and, if permitted, trav-
elled for miles through the forest either in circles or in
exactly the wrong direction. They had no such sense
of direction as the forest-dwelling "Ndorobo hunters in
Africa had, or as the true forest-dwelling Indians of
South America are said to have. On certainly half a

The Highland Wilderness 181

dozen occasions our guides went completely astray, and
we had to take command, to disregard their assertions,
and to lead the way aright by sole reliance on our
compasses.

On this cool day we travelled well. The air was won-
derful; the vast open spaces gave a sense of abounding
vigor and freedom. Early in the afternoon we reached
a station made by Colonel Rondon in the course of his
first explorations. There were several houses with white-
washed walls, stone floors, and tiled or thatched roofs.
They stood in a wide, gently sloping valley. Through
it ran a rapid brook of cool water, in which we enjoyed
delightful baths. The heavy, intensely humid atmosphere
of the low, marshy plains had gone; the air was clear
and fresh; the sky was brilliant; far and wide we looked
over a landscape that seemed limitless; the breeze that
blew in our faces might have come from our own north-
ern plains. The midday sun was very hot; but it was
hard to realize that we were in the torrid zone. There
were nO mosquitoes, so that we never put up our nets
when we went to bed; but wrapped ourselves in our
blankets and slept soundly through the cool, pleasant
nights. Surely in the future this region will be the home
of a healthy highly civilized population. It is good for
cattle-raising, and the valleys are fitted for agriculture.
From June to September the nights are often really cold.
Any sound northern race could live here; and in such a
land, with such a climate, there would be much joy of
living.

On these plains the Telegraphic Commission uses
motor-trucks; and these now served to relieve the mules

182 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

and oxen; for some of them, especially among the oxen,
already showed the effects of the strain. Travelling in
a wild country with a pack-train is not easy on the pack-
animals. It was strange to see these big motor-vans out
in the wilderness where there was not a settler, not a
civilized man except the employees of the Telegraphic
Commission. They were handled by Lieutenant Lauriado,
who, with Lieutenant Mello, had taken special charge of
our transport service; both were exceptionally good and
competent men.

The following day we again rode on across the Plan
Alto. In the early afternoon, in the midst of a downpour
of rain, we crossed the divide between the basins of the
Paraguay and the Amazon. That evening we camped on
a brook whose waters ultimately ran into the Tapajos.
The rain fell throughout the afternoon, now lightly, now
heavily, and the mule-train did not get. up until dark.
But enough tents and flies were pitched to shelter all of
us. Fires were lit, and—after a fourteen hours’ fast—
we feasted royally on beans and rice and pork and beef,
seated around oxskins spread upon the ground. The sky
cleared; the stars blazed down through the cool night;
and wrapped in our blankets we slept soundly, warm and
comfortable.

Next morning the trail had turned, and our course led
northward and at times east of north. We traversed the
same high, rolling plains of coarse grass and stunted
trees. Kermit, riding a big, iron-mouthed, bull-headed
white mule, rode off to one side on a hunt, and rejoined
the line of march carrying two bucks of the little pampas-
deer, or field deer, behind his’ saddle. These deer are

The Highland Wilderness 183

very pretty and graceful, with a tail like that of the
Colombian blacktail. Standing motionless facing one,
in the sparse scrub, they are hard to make out; if seen
sideways the reddish of their coats, contrasted with the
greens and grays of the landscape, betrays them; and
when they bound off the upraised white tail is very con-
spicuous. They carefully avoid the woods in which
their cousins the little bush deer are found, and go singly
or in couples. Their odor can be made out at quite a
distance, but it is not rank. They still carried their
antlers. Their venison was delicious.

We came across many queer insects. One red grass-
hopper when it flew seemed as big as a small sparrow;
and we passed in some places such multitudes of active
little green grasshoppers that they frightened the mules.
At our camping-place we saw an extraordinary colony of
spiders. It was among some dwarf trees, standing a
few yards apart from one another by the water. When
we reached the camping-place, early in the afternoon—
the pack-train did not get in until nearly sunset, just
ahead of the rain—no spiders were out. They were
under the leaves of the trees. Their webs were tenant-
less, and indeed for the most part were broken down.
But at dusk they came out from their hiding-places, two
or three hundred of them in all, and at once began to
repair the old and spin new webs. Each spun its own
circular web, and sat in the middle; and each web was
connected on several sides with other webs, while those
nearest the trees were hung to them by spun ropes, so to
speak, The result was a kind of sheet of web consisting
of scores of wheels, in each of which the owner and

184 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

proprietor sat; and there were half a dozen such sheets,
each extending between two trees. The webs could hard-
ly be seen, and-the effect was of scores of big, formidable-
looking spiders poised in midair, equidistant from one
another, between each pair of trees. When darkness and
rain fell they were still out, fixing their webs, and pounc-
ing on the occasional insects that blundered into the webs.
I have no question that they are nocturnal; they certainly
hide in the daytime, and it seems impossible that they
can come out only for a few minutes at dusk.

In the evenings, after supper or dinner—it is hard to
tell by what title the exceedingly movable evening meal
should be called—the members of the party sometimes
told stories of incidents in their past lives. Most of them
were men of varied experiences. Rondon and Lyra told
of the hardship and suffering of the first trips through the
wilderness across which we were going with such com-
fort. On this very plateau they had once lived for weeks
on the fruits of the various fruit-bearing trees. Naturally
they became emaciated and feeble. In the forests of the
Amazonian basin they did better because they often shot
birds and plundered the hives of the wild honey-bees,
In cutting the trail for the telegraph-line through the
Juruena basin they lost every single one of the hundred
and sixty mules with which they had started. Those
men pay dear who build the first foundations of empire!
Fiala told of the long polar nights and of white bears that
came round the snow huts of the explorers, greedy to
eat them, and themselves destined to be eaten by them.
Of all the party Cherrie’s experiences had covered the
widest range. This was partly owing to the fact that

The Highland Wilderness 185

the latter-day naturalist of the most vigorous type who
goes into the untrodden wastes of the world must see
and do many strange things; and still more owing to the
character of the man himself. The things he had seen
and done and undergone often enabled him to cast the
light of his own past experience on unexpected subjects.
Once we were talking about the proper weapons for
cavalry, and some one mentioned the theory that the
lance is especially formidable because of the moral effect
it produces on the enemy. Cherrie nodded emphatically ;
and a little cross-examination elicited the fact that he
was speaking from lively personal recollection of his
own feelings when charged by lancers. It was while he
was fighting with the Venezuelan insurgents in an un-
successful uprising against the tyranny of Castro. He
was on foot, with five Venezuelans, all cool men and
good shots. In an open plain they were charged by
twenty of Castro’s lancers, who galloped out from be-
hind cover two or three hundred yards off. It was a war
in which neither side gave quarter and in which the
wounded and the prisoners were butchered—just as
President Madero was butchered in Mexico. Cherrie
knew that it meant death for him and his companions if
the charge came home; and the sight of the horsemen
running in at full speed, with their long lances in rest
and the blades glittering, left an indelible impression on
his mind. But he and his companions shot deliberately
and accurately ; ten of the lancers were killed, the nearest
falling within fifty yards; and the others rode off in
headlong haste. A cool man with a rifle, if he has mas-
tered his weapon, need fear no foe.

186 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

At this camp the auto-vans again joined us. They
were to go direct to the first telegraph station, at the
great falls of the Utiarity, on the Rio Papagaio. Of
course they travelled faster than the mule-train. Father
Zahm, attended by Sigg, started for the falls in them.
Cherrie and Miller also went in them, because they had
found that it was very difficult to collect birds, and
especially mammals, when we were moving every day,
packing up early each morning and the mule-train arriv-
ing late in the afternoon or not until nightfall. More-
over, there was much rain, which made it difficult to work
except under the tents. Accordingly, the two naturalists
desired to get to a place where they could spend several
days and collect steadily, thereby doing more effective
work. The rest of us continued with the mule-train, as
was necessary.

It was always a picturesque sight when camp was
broken, and again at nightfall when the laden mules
came stringing in and their burdens were thrown down,
while the tents were pitched and the fires lit. We break-
fasted before leaving camp, the aluminum cups and plates
being placed on ox-hides, round which we sat, on the
ground or on camp-stools. We fared well, on rice, beans,
and crackers, with canned corned beef, and salmon or
any game that had been shot, and coffee, tea, and matté.
I then usually sat down somewhere to write, and when
the mules were nearly ready I popped my writing-
materials into my duffel-bag—war-sack, as we would
have called it in the old days on the plains. I found
that the mules usually arrived so late in the afternoon
or evening that I could not depend upon being able to

The Highland Wilderness 187

write at that time. Of course, if we made a very early
start I could not write at all. At night there were no
mosquitoes. In the daytime gnats and sand-flies and
horse-flies sometimes bothered us a little, but not much.
Small stingless bees lit on us in numbers and crawled
over the skin, making a slight tickling; but we did not
mind them until they became very numerous. There was
a good deal of rain, but not enough to cause any serious
annoyance.

Colonel Rondon and Lieutenant Lyra held many dis-
cussions as to whither the Rio da Duvida flowed, and
where its mouth might be. Its provisional name—“River
of Doubt’”—was given it precisely because of this igno-
rance concerning it; an ignorance which it was one of
the purposes of our trip to dispel. It might go into the
Gy-Parana, in which case its course must be very short;
it might flow into the Madeira low down, in which case
its course would be very long; or, which was unlikely, it
might flow into the Tapajos. There was another river,
of which Colonel Rondon had come across the head-
waters, whose course was equally doubtful, although in
its case there was rather more probability of its flowing
into the Juruena, by which name the Tapajos is known
for its upper half. To this unknown river Colonel Ron-
don had given the name Ananas, because when he came
across it he found a deserted Indian field with pineapples,
which the hungry explorers ate greedily. Among the
things the colonel and I hoped to accomplish on the trip
was to do a little work in clearing up one or the other of
these two doubtful geographical points, and thereby to
push a little forward the knowledge of this region. Orig-

188 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

inally, as described in the first chapter, my trip was under-
taken primarily in the interest of the American Museum
of Natural History of New York, to add to our knowl-
edge of the birds and mammals of the far interior of the
western Brazilian wilderness; and the labels of our bag-
gage and scientific equipment, printed by the museum,
were entitled “Colonel Roosevelt’s South American Ex-
pedition for the American Museum of Natural History.”
But, as I have already mentioned, at Rio the Brazilian
Government, through the secretary of foreign affairs,
Doctor Lauro Miiller, suggested that I should combine
the expedition with one by Colonel Rondon, which they
contemplated making, and thereby make both expeditions
of broader scientific interest. I accepted the proposal
with much pleasure; and we found, when we joined Col-
onel Rondon and his associates, that their baggage and
equipment had been labelled by the Brazilian Govern-
ment “Expedicao Scientifica Roosevelt-Rondon.” This
thenceforth became the proper and official title of the
expedition. Cherrie and Miller did the chief zoological
work. The geological work was done by a Brazilian
member of the expedition, Euzebio Oliveira. The astro-
nomical work necessary for obtaining the exact geo-
graphical location of the rivers and points of note was to
be done by Lieutenant Lyra, under the supervision of
Colonel Rondon; and at the telegraph stations this
astronomical work would be checked by wire communi-
cations with one of Colonel Rondon’s assistants at Cu-
yaba, Lieutenant Caetano, thereby securing a minutely
accurate comparison of time. The sketch-maps and sur-
veying and cartographical work generally were to be

The Highland Wilderness 189

made under the supervision of Colonel Rondon by Lyra,
with assistance from Fiala and Kermit. Captain Amil-
car handled the worst problem —transportation; the
medical member was Doctor Cajazeira.

At night around the camp-fire my Brazilian compan-
ions often spoke of the first explorers of this vast wilder-
ness of western Brazil—men whose very names are now
hardly known, but who did each his part in opening the
country which will some day see such growth and devel-
opment. Among the most notable of them was a Portu-
guese, Ricardo Franco, who spent forty years at the
work, during the last quarter of the eighteenth and the
opening years of the nineteenth centuries. He ascended
for long distances the Xingu and the Tapajos, and went
up the Madeira and Guaporé, crossing to the head-waters
of the Paraguay and partially exploring there also. He
worked among and with the Indians, much as Mungo
Park worked with the natives of West Africa, having
none of the aids, instruments, and comforts with which
even the hardiest of modern explorers are provided. He
was one of the men who established the beginnings of
the province of Matto Grosso. For many years the sole
method of communication between this remote interior
province and civilization was by the long, difficult, and
perilous route which led up the Amazon and Madeira;
and its then capital, the town of Matto Grosso, the seat
of the captain-general, with its palace, cathedral, and
fortress, was accordingly placed far to the west, near
the Guaporé. When less circuitous lines of communica-
tion were established farther eastward the old capital was
abandoned, and the tropic wilderness surged over the

190 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

lonely little town. The tomb of the old colonial explorer
still stands in the ruined cathedral, where the forest has
once more come to its own. But civilization is again ad-
vancing to reclaim the lost town and to revive the memory
of the wilderness wanderer who helped to found it.
Colonel Rondon has named a river after Franco; a range
of mountains has also been named after him; and the
colonel, acting for the Brazilian Government, has es-
tablished a telegraph station in what was once the palace
of the captain-general.

Our northward trail led along the high ground a
league or two to the east of the northward-flowing Rio
Sacre. Each night we camped on one of the small
tributary brooks that fed it. Fiala, Kermit, and I occu-
pied one tent. In the daytime the “pium”’ flies, vicious
little sand-flies, became bad enough to make us finally use
gloves and head-nets. There were many heavy rains,
which made the travelling hard for the mules. The soil
was more often clay than sand, and it was slippery when
wet. The weather was overcast, and there was usually
no oppressive heat even at noon. At intervals along the
trail we came on the staring skull and bleached skeleton
of a mule or ox. Day after day we rode forward across
endless flats of grass and of low open scrubby forest, the
trees standing far apart and in most places being but
little higher than the head of a horseman. Some of
them carried blossoms, white, orange, yellow, pink; and
there were many flowers, the most beautiful being the
morning-glories. Among the trees were bastard rubber-
trees, and dwarf palmetto; if the latter grew more than
a few feet high their tops were torn and dishevelled by

The Highland Wilderness I9I

the wind. There was very little bird or mammal life;
there were few long vistas, for in most places it was not
possible to see far among the gray, gnarled trunks of the
wind-beaten little trees. Yet the desolate landscape had
a certain charm of its own, although not a charm that
would be felt by any man who does not take pleasure in
mere space, and freedom and wildness, and in plains
standing empty to the sun, the wind, and the rain. The
country bore some resemblance to the country west of ©
Redjaf on the White Nile, the home of the giant eland;
only here there was no big game, no chance of seeing the
towering form of the giraffe, the black bulk of elephant
or buffalo, the herds of straw-colored hartebeests, or the
ghostly shimmer of the sun glinting on the coats of roan
and eland as they vanished silently in the gray sea of
withered scrub.

One feature in common with the African landscape
was the abundance of ant-hills, some as high as a man.
They were red in the clay country, gray where it was
sandy; and the dirt houses were also in trees, while their
raised tunnels traversed trees and ground alike. At some
of the camping-places we had to be on our watch against
the swarms of leaf-carrying ants. These are so called
in the books—the Brazilians call them “carregadores,” or
porters—because they are always carrying bits of leaves
and blades of grass to their underground homes. They
are inveterate burden-bearers, and they industriously cut
into pieces and carry off any garment they can get at;
and we had to guard our shoes and clothes from them,
just as we had often had to guard all our belongings
against the termites. These ants did not bite us; but we

192 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

encountered huge black ants, an inch and a quarter long,
which were very vicious, and their bite was not only pain-
ful but quite poisonous. Praying-mantes were common,
and one evening at supper one had a comical encounter
with a young dog, a jovial near-puppy, of Colonel Ron-
don’s, named Cartucho. He had been christened the
jolly-cum-pup, from a character in one of Frank Stock-
ton’s stories, which I suppose are now remembered only
by elderly people, and by them only if they are natives of
the United States. Cartucho was lying with his head on
the ox-hide that served as table, waiting with poorly dis-
sembled impatience for his share of the banquet. The
mantis flew down on the ox-hide and proceeded to crawl
over it, taking little flights from one corner to another;
and whenever it thought itself menaced it assumed an
attitude of seeming devotion and real defiance. Soon it
lit in front of Cartucho’s nose. Cartucho cocked his big
ears forward, stretched his neck, and cautiously sniffed
at the new arrival, not with any hostile design, but merely
to find out whether it would prove to be a playmate. The
mantis promptly assumed an attitude of prayer. This
struck Cartucho as both novel and interesting, and he
thrust his sniffing black nose still nearer. The mantis
dexterously thrust forward first one and then the other
armed fore leg, touching the intrusive nose, which was
instantly jerked back and again slowly and inquiringly
brought forward. Then the mantis suddenly flew in
Cartucho’s face, whereupon Cartucho, with a smothered
yelp of dismay, almost turned a back somersault; and
the triumphant mantis flew back to the middle of the ox-

The Highland Wilderness 193

hide, among the plates, where it reared erect and defied
the laughing and applauding company.

On the morning of the 29th we were rather late in
starting, because the rain had continued through the
night into the morning, drenching everything. After
nightfall there had been some mosquitoes, and the piums
were a pest during daylight; where one bites it leaves a
tiny black spot on the skin which lasts for several weeks.
In the slippery mud one of the pack-mules fell and in-
jured itself so that it had to be abandoned. Soon after
starting we came on the telegraph-line, which runs from
Cayuba; this was the first time we had seen it. Two
Parecis Indians joined us, leading a pack-bullock. They
were dressed in hat, shirt, trousers, and sandals, precisely
like the ordinary Brazilian caboclos, as the poor back-
woods peasants, usually with little white blood in them,
are colloquially and half-derisively styled—caboclo being
originally a Guarany word meaning “naked savage.”
These two Indians were in the employ of the Telegraphic
Commission, and had been patrolling the telegraph-line.
The bullock carried their personal belongings and the
tools with which they could repair a break. The com-
mission pays the ordinary Indian worker 66 cents a day;
avery good worker gets $1, and the chief $1.66. No man
gets anything unless he works. Colonel Rondon, by just,
kindly, and understanding treatment of these Indians,
who previously had often been exploited and maltreated
by rubber-gatherers, has made them the loyal friends of
the government. He has gathered them at the telegraph
stations, where they cultivate fields of mandioc, beans,
potatoes, maize, and other vegetables, and where he is

194 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

introducing them to stock-raising ; and the entire work of
guarding and patrolling the line is theirs.

After six hours’ march we came to the crossing of
the Rio Sacre at the beautiful waterfall appropriately
called the Salto Bello. This is the end of the automobile
road. Here there is a small Parecis village. The men
of the village work the ferry by which everything is taken
across the deep and rapid river. The ferry-boat is made
of planking placed on three dugout canoes, and runs on
a trolley. Before crossing we enjoyed a good swim in
the swift, clear, cool water. The Indian village, where
we camped, is placed on a jutting tongue of land round
which the river sweeps just before it leaps from the over-
hanging precipice. The falls themselves are very lovely.
Just above them is a wooded island, but the river joins
again before it races forward for the final plunge. There
is a sheer drop of forty or fifty yards, with a breadth
two or three times as great; and the volume of water is
large. On the left or hither bank a cliff extends for sev-
eral hundred yards below the falls. Green vines have
flung themselves down over its face, and they are met by
other vines thrusting upward from the mass of vegeta-
tion at its foot, glistening in the perpetual mist from the
cataract, and clothing even the rock surfaces in vivid
green. The river, after throwing itself over the rock
wall, rushes off in long curves at the bottom of a thickly
wooded ravine, the white water churning among the black
bowlders. There is a perpetual rainbow at the foot of
the falls. The masses of green water that are hurling
themselves over the brink dissolve into shifting, foaming
columns of snowy lace.

The Highland Wilderness 195

On the edge of the cliff below the falls Colonel Ron-
don had placed benches, giving a curious touch of rather
conventional tourist-civilization to this cataract far out in
the lonely wilderness. It is well worth visiting for its
beauty. It is also of extreme interest because of the
promise it holds for the future. Lieutenant Lyra in-
formed me that they had calculated that this. fall would
furnish thirty-six thousand horse-power. Eight miles off
we were to see another fall of much greater height and
power. There are many rivers in this region which
would furnish almost unlimited motive force to populous
manufacturing communities. The country round about
is healthy. It is an upland region of good climate; we
were visiting it in the rainy season, the season when the
nights are far less cool than in the dry season, and yet
we found it delightful. There is much fertile soil in the
neighborhood of the streams, and the teeming lowlands
of the Amazon and the Paraguay could readily—and
with immense advantage to both sides—be made tributary
to an industrial civilization seated on these highlands. A
telegraph-line has been built to and across them. A rail-
road should follow. Such a line could be easily built, for
there are no serious natural obstacles. In advance of its
construction a trolley-line could be run from Cuyaba to
the falls, using the power furnished by the latter. Once
this is done the land will offer extraordinary opportuni-
ties to settlers of the right kind: to home-makers and to
enterprising business men of foresight, coolness, and
sagacity who are willing to work with the settlers, the
immigrants, the home-makers, for an advantage which
shall be mutual.

196 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

The Parecis Indians, whom we met here, were ex-
ceedingly interesting. They were to all appearance an
unusually cheerful, good -humored, pleasant - natured
people. Their teeth were bad; otherwise they appeared
strong and vigorous, and there were plenty of children.
The colonel was received as a valued friend and as a
leader who was to be followed and obeyed. He is rais-
ing them by degrees—the only way by which to make the
rise permanent. In this village he has got them to sub-
stitute for the flimsy Indian cabins houses of the type
usual among the poorer field laborers and back-country:
dwellers in Brazil. These houses have roofs of palm
thatch, steeply pitched. They are usually open at the
sides, consisting merely of a framework of timbers, with
a wall at the back ; but some have the ordinary four walls,
of erect palm-logs. The hammocks are slung in the
houses, and the cooking is also done in them, with pots
placed on small open fires, or occasionally in a kind of
clay oven. The big gourds for water, and the wicker
baskets, are placed on the ground, or hung on the poles.

The men had adopted, and were wearing, shirts and
trousers, but the women had made little change in their
clothing. A few wore print dresses, but obviously only
for ornament. Most of them, especially the girls and
young married women, wore nothing but a loin-cloth in
addition to bead necklaces and bracelets. The nursing
mothers—and almost all the mothers were nursing—
sometimes carried the child slung against their side or
hip, seated in a cloth belt, or sling, which went over the
opposite shoulder of the mother. The women seemed to
be well treated, although polygamy is practised. The

The Highland Wilderness 197

children were loved by every one; they were petted by
both men and women, and they behaved well to one
another, the boys not seeming to bully the girls or the
smaller boys. Most of the children were naked, but the
girls early wore the loin-cloth; and some, both of the
little boys and the little girls, wore colored print garments,
to the evident pride of themselves and their parents. In
each house there were several families, and life went on
with no privacy but with good humor, consideration, and
fundamentally good manners. The man or woman who
had nothing to do lay in a hammock or squatted on the
ground leaning against a post or wall. The children
played together, or lay in little hammocks, or tagged
round after their mothers; and when called they came
trustfully up to us to be petted or given. some small
trinket; they were friendly little souls, and accustomed
to good treatment. One woman was weaving a cloth,
another was making a hammock; others made ready
melons and other vegetables and cooked them over tiny
fires. The men, who had come in from work at the ferry
or along the telegraph-lines, did some work themselves,
or played with the children; one cut a small boy’s hair,
and then had his own hair cut by a friend. But the
absorbing amusement of the men was an extraordinary
game of ball.

In our family we have always relished Oliver
Herford’s nonsense rhymes, including the account of
Willie’s displeasure with his goat:

“T do not like my billy goat,
I wish that he was dead;

Because he kicked me, so he did,
He kicked me with his head.”

198 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

Well, these Parecis Indians enthusiastically play foot-
ball with their heads. The game is not only native to
them, but I have never heard or read of its being played
by any other tribe or people. They use a light hollow
rubber ball, of their own manufacture. It is circular and
about eight inches in diameter. The players are divided
into two sides, and stationed much as in association foot-
ball, and the ball is placed on the ground to be put in play
as in football. Then a player runs forward, throws him-
self flat on the ground, and butts the ball toward the
opposite side. This first butt, when the ball is on the
ground, never lifts it much and it rolls and bounds to-
ward the opponents. One or two of the latter run toward
it; one throws himself flat on his face and butts the ball
back. Usually this butt lifts it, and it flies back in a
curve well up in the air; and an opposite player, rushing
toward it, catches it on his head with such a swing of his
brawny neck, and such precision and address that the
ball bounds back through the air as a football soars after
a drop-kick. If the ball flies off to one side or the other
it is brought back, and again put in play. Often it will be
sent to and fro a dozen times, from head to head, until
finally it rises with such a sweep that it passes far over
the heads of the opposite players and descends behind
them. Then shrill, rolling cries of good-humored tri-
umph arise from the victors; and the game instantly
begins again with fresh zest. There are, of course, no
such rules as in a specialized ball-game of civilization;
and I saw no disputes. There may be eight or ten, or
many more, players on: each side. The ball is never
touched with the hands or feet, or with anything except

The Highland Wilderness 199

the top of the head. It is hard to decide whether to
wonder most at the dexterity and strength with which
it is hit or butted with the head, as it comes down through
the air, or at the reckless speed and skill with which the
players throw themselves headlong on the ground to re-
turn the ball if it comes low down. Why they do not
grind off their noses I cannot imagine. Some of the
players hardly ever failed to catch and return the ball if
it came in their neighborhood, and with such a vigorous
toss of the head that it often flew in a great curve for a
really astonishing distance.

That night a pack-ox got into the tent in which Ker-
mit and I were sleeping, entering first at one end and then
at the other. It is extraordinary that he did not waken
us; but we slept undisturbed while the ox deliberately ate
our shirts, socks, and underclothes! It chewed them into
rags. One of my socks escaped, and my undershirt, al-
though chewed full of holes, was still good for some
weeks’ wear; but the other things were in fragments.

In the morning Colonel Rondon arranged for us to
have breakfast over on the benches under the trees by the
waterfall, whose roar, lulled to a thunderous murmur,
had been in our ears before we slept and when we waked.
There could have been no more picturesque place for the
breakfast of such a party as ours. All travellers who
really care to see what is most beautiful and most char-
acteristic of the far interior of South America should in
their journey visit this region, and see the two great
waterfalls. They are even now easy of access; and as
soon as the traffic warrants it they will be made still more
so; then, from Sao Luis de Caceres, they will be speedily

200 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

reached by light steamboat up the Sepotuba and by a day
or two’s automobile ride, with a couple of days on horse-
back in between.

The colonel held a very serious council with the
Parecis Indians over an incident which caused him grave
concern. One of the commission’s employees, a negro,
had killed a wild Nhambiquara Indian; but it appeared
that he had really been urged on and aided by the
Parecis, as the members of the tribe to which the dead
Indian belonged were much given to carrying off the
Parecis women and in other ways making themselves
bad neighbors. The colonel tried hard to get at the
truth of the matter; he went to the biggest Indian house,
where he sat in a hammock—an Indian child cuddling
solemnly up to him, by the way—while the Indians sat
in other hammocks, and stood round about; but it was
impossible to get an absolutely frank statement.

It appeared, however, that the Nhambiquaras had
made a descent on the Parecis village in the momentary
absence of the men of the village; but the latter, notified
by the screaming of the women, had returned in time to
rescue them. The negro was with them and, having a
good rifle, he killed one of the aggressors. The Parecis
were, of course, in the right, but the colonel could not
afford to have his men take sides in a tribal quarrel.

It was only a two hours’ march across to the Papa-
gaio at the Falls of Utiarity, so named by their dis-
coverer, Colonel Rondon, after the sacred falcon of the
Parecis. On the way we passed our Indian friends,
themselves bound thither; both the men and the women
bore burdens—the burdens of some of the women, poor

The Highland Wilderness 201

things, were heavy—and even the small naked children
carried the live hens. At Utiarity there is a big Parecis
settlement and a telegraph station kept by one of the
employees of the commission. His pretty brown wife is
acting as schoolmistress to a group of little Parecis girls.
The Parecis chief has been made a major and wears a
uniform accordingly. The commission has erected good
buildings for its own employees and. has superintended
the erection of good houses for the Indians. Most of
the latter still prefer the simplicity of the loin-cloth, in
their ordinary lives, but they proudly wore their civilized
clothes in our honor, When in the late afternoon the
men began to play a regular match game of headball,
with a scorer or umpire to keep count, they soon dis-
carded most of their clothes, coming down to nothing but
trousers or a loin-cloth. Two or three of them had their
faces stained with red ochre. Among the women and
children looking on were a couple of little girls who
paraded about on stilts.

The great waterfall was half a mile below us. Love-
ly though we had found Salto Bello, these falls were far
superior in beauty and majesty. They are twice as high
and twice as broad; and the lay of the land is such that
the various landscapes in which the waterfall is a feature
are more striking. A few hundred yards above the falls
the river turns at an angle and widens. The broad, rapid
shallows are crested with whitecaps. Beyond this wide
expanse of flecked and hurrying water rise the mist col-
umns of the cataract; and as these columns are swayed
and broken by the wind the forest appears through and
between them. From below the view is one of singular

202 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

grandeur. The fall is over a shelving ledge of rock which
goes in a nearly straight line across the river’s course.
But at the left there is a salient in the cliff-line, and here
accordingly a great cataract of foaming water comes
down almost as a separate body, in advance of the line
of the main fall. I doubt whether, excepting, of course,
Niagara, there is a waterfall in North America which
outranks this if both volume and beauty are considered.
Above the fall the river flows through a wide valley with
gently sloping sides. Below, it slips along, a torrent of
whity-green water, at the bottom of a deep gorge; and
the sides of the gorge are clothed with a towering growth
of tropical forest.

Next morning the cacique of these Indians, in his
major’s uniform, came to breakfast, and bore himself
with entire propriety. It was raining heavily—it rained
most of the time—and a few minutes previously I had
noticed the cacique’s two wives, with three or four other
young women, going out to the mandioc fields. It was
a picturesque group. The women were all mothers, and
each carried a nursing child. They wore loin-cloths or
short skirts. Each carried on her back a wickerwork
basket supported by a head-strap which went around her
forehead. Each carried a belt slung diagonally across
her body, over her right shoulder; in this the child was
carried, against and perhaps astride of her left hip. They
were comely women, who did not look jaded or cowed;
and they laughed cheerfully and nodded to us as they
passed through the rain, on their way to the fields, But
the contrast between them and the chief in his soldier’s
uniform seated at breakfast was rather too striking; and

The Falls of Utiarity.

“I doubt whether, excepting, of course, Niagara, there is a waterfall in North America which outranks
this if both volume and beauty are considered.”

From a photograph by Cherrie.

204 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

Arizona and Sonora, and along the Guaso Nyiro north
and west of Mount Kenia, when the barren mountains
were changed into flaming “ramparts of slaughter and
peril” standing above “the wine-dark flats below.”

It rained during most of the day after our arrival at
Utiarity. Whenever there was any let-up the men
promptly came forth from their houses and played head-
ball with the utmost vigor; and we would listen to their
shrill undulating cries of applause and triumph until we
also grew interested and strolled over to look on. They
are more infatuated with the game than an American
boy is with baseball or football. It is an extraordinary
thing that this strange and exciting game should be played
by, and only by, one little tribe of Indians in what is
almost the very centre of South America. If any travel-
ler or ethnologist knows of a tribe elsewhere that plays a
similar game, I wish he would let me know. To play
it demands great activity, vigor, skill, and endurance.
Looking at the strong, supple bodies of the players, and
at the number of children roundabout, it seemed as if the
tribe must be in vigorous health; yet the Parecis have
decreased in numbers, for measles and smallpox have
been fatal to them.

By the evening the rain was coming down more heav-
ily than ever. It was not possible to keep the moisture
out of our belongings; everything became mouldy except
what became rusty. It rained all that night; and day-
light saw the downpour continuing with no prospect of
cessation. The pack-mules could not have gone on with
the march; they were already rather done up by their
previous ten days’ labor through rain and mud, and it

The Highland Wilderness 205

seemed advisable to wait until the weather became better
before attempting to go forward. Moreover, there had
been no chance to take the desired astronomical observa-
tions. There was very little grass for the mules; but
there was abundance of a small-leaved plant eight or ten
inches high—unfortunately, not very nourishing—on
which they fed greedily. In such weather and over such
muddy trails oxen travel better than mules.

In spite of the weather Cherrie and Miller, whom, to-
gether with Father Zahm and Sigg, we had found await-
ing us, made good collections of birds and mammals.
Among the latter were opossums and mice that were new
tothem. The birds included various forms so unlike our
home birds that the enumeration of their names would
mean nothing. One of the most interesting was a large
black-and-white woodpecker, the white predominating in
the plumage. Several of these woodpeckers were usually
found together. They were showy, noisy, and restless,
and perched on twigs, in ordinary bird fashion, at least
as often as they clung to the trunks in orthodox wood-
pecker style. The prettiest bird was a tiny manakin,
coal-black, with a red-and-orange head.

On February 2 the rain let up, although the sky re-
mained overcast and there were occasional showers. I
walked off with my rifle for a couple of leagues; at that
distance, from a slight hillock, the mist columns of the
falls were conspicuous in the landscape. The only mam-
mal I saw on the walk was a rather hairy armadillo, with
a flexible tail, which I picked up and brought back to
Miller—it showed none of the speed of the nine-banded
armadillos we met on our jaguar-hunt. Judging by its

206 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

actions, as it trotted about before it saw me, it must be
diurnal in habits. It was new to the collection.

I spent much of the afternoon by the waterfall. Un-
der the overcast sky the great cataract lost the deep green
and fleecy-white of the sunlit falling waters. Instead it
showed opaline hues and tints of topaz and amethyst.
At all times, and under all lights, it was majestic and
beautiful.

Colonel Rondon had given the Indians various pres-
ents, those for the women including calico prints, and,
what they especially prized, bottles of scented oil, from
Paris, for their hair. The men held a dance in the late
afternoon. For this occasion most, but not all, of them
cast aside their civilized clothing, and appeared as doubt-
less they would all have appeared had none but themselves
been present. They were absolutely naked except for a
beaded string round the waist. Most of them were spot-
ted and dashed with red paint, and on one leg wore
anklets which rattled. A number carried pipes through
which they blew a kind of deep stifled whistle in time to
the dancing. One of them had his pipe leading into a
huge gourd, which gave out a hollow, moaning boom.
Many wore two red or green or yellow macaw feathers
in their hair, and one had a macaw feather stuck trans-
versely through the septum of his nose. They circled
slowly round and round, chanting and stamping their
feet, while the anklet rattles clattered and the pipes
droned. They advanced to the wall of one of the houses,
again and again chanting and bowing before it; I was
told this was a demand for drink. They entered one
house and danced in a ring around the cooking-fire in

The Highland Wilderness 207

the middle of the earth floor; I was told that they were
then reciting the deeds of mighty hunters and describing
how they brought in the game. They drank freely from
gourds and pannikins of a fermented drink made from
mandioc which were brought out to them. During the
first part of the dance the women remained in the houses,
and all the doors and windows were shut and blankets
hung to prevent the possibility of seeing out. But during
the second part all the women and girls came out and
looked on. They were themselves to have danced when
the men had finished, but were overcome with shyness
at the thought of dancing with so many strangers looking
on. The children played about with unconcern through-
out the ceremony, one of them throwing high in the air,
and again catching in his hands, a loaded feather, a kind
of shuttlecock.

In the evening the growing moon shone through the
cloud-rack. Anything approaching fair weather always
put our men in good spirits; and the muleteers squatted
in a circle, by a fire near a pile of packs, and listened to
along monotonously and rather mournfully chanted song
about a dance and a love-affair. We ourselves worked
busily with our photographs and our writing. There was
so much humidity in the air that everything grew damp
and stayed damp, and mould gathered quickly. At this
season it is a country in which writing, taking photo-
graphs, and preparing specimens are all works of diffi-
culty, at least so far as concerns preserving and sending
home the results of the labor; and a man’s clothing is
never really dry. From here Father Zahm returned to
Tapirapoan, accompanied by Sigg.

CHAPTER VII

WITH A MULE TRAIN ACROSS
NHAMBIQUARA LAND

ROM this point we were to enter a still wilder
F region, the land of the naked Nhambiquaras. On
February 3 the weather cleared and we started

with the mule-train and two ox-carts. Fiala and Lieu-
tenant Lauriado stayed at Utiarity to take canoes and
go down the Papagaio, which had not been descended
by any scientific party, and perhaps by no one. They
were then to descend the Juruena and Tapajos, thereby
performing a necessary part of the work of the expedi-
tion. Our remaining party consisted of Colonel Rondon,
Lieutenant Lyra, the doctor, Oliveira, Cherrie, Miller,
Kermit, and myself. On the Juruena we expected to
meet the pack ox-train with Captain Amilcar and Lieu-
tenant Mello; the other Brazilian members of the party
had returned. We had now begun the difficult part of the
expedition. The pium flies were becoming a pest. There
was much fever and beriberi in the country we were
entering. The feed for the animals was poor; the rains
had made the trails slippery and difficult ; and many, both
of the mules and the oxen, were already weak, and some
had to be abandoned. We left the canoe, the motor, and
the gasolene; we had hoped to try them on the Ama-

208

Across Nhambiquara Land 209

zonian rivers, but we were obliged to cut down every-
thing that was not absolutely indispensable.

Before leaving we prepared for shipment back to the
museum some of the bigger skins, and also some of the
weapons and utensils of the Indians, which Kermit had
collected. These included woven fillets, and fillets made
of macaw feathers, for use in the dances; woven belts;
a gourd in which the sacred drink is offered to the god
Enoerey; wickerwork baskets; flutes or pipes; anklet rat-
tles; hammocks; a belt of the kind used by the women in
carrying the babies, with the weaving-frame. All these
were Parecis articles. He also secured from the Nham-
biquaras wickerwork baskets of a different type and
bows and arrows. The bows were seven feet long and
the arrows five feet. There were blunt-headed arrows
for birds, arrows with long, sharp wooden blades for
tapir, deer, and other mammals; and the poisoned war-
arrows, with sharp barbs, poison-coated and bound on by
fine thongs, and with a long, hollow wooden guard to slip
over the entire point and protect it until the time came
to use it. When people talk glibly of “idle” savages they
ignore the immense labor entailed by many of their in-
dustries, and the really extraordinary amount of work
they accomplish by the skilful use of their primitive and
ineffective tools.

It was not until early in the afternoon that we started
into the “sertao,” * as Brazilians call the wilderness. We
drove with us a herd of oxen for food. After going
about fifteen miles we camped beside the swampy head-

*Pronounced “sairtown,” as nearly as, with our preposterous
methods of spelling and pronunciation, I can render it.

210 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

waters of a little brook. It was at the spot where nearly
seven years previously Rondon and Lyra had camped on
the trip when they discovered Utiarity Falls and pene-
trated to the Juruena. When they reached this place
they had been thirty-six hours without food. They killed
a bush deer—a small deer—and ate literally every particle.
The dogs devoured the entire skin. For much of the
time on this trip they lived on wild fruit, and the two
dogs that remained alive would wait eagerly under the
trees and eat the fruit that was shaken down.

In the late afternoon the piums were rather bad at this
camp, but we had gloves and head-nets, and were not
bothered; and although there were some mosquitoes we
slept well under our mosquito-nets. The frogs in the
swamp uttered a peculiar, loud shout. Miller told of a
little tree-frog in Colombia which swelled itself out with
air until it looked like the frog in Zsop’s fables, and then
brayed like a mule; and Cherrie told of a huge frog in
Guiana that uttered a short, loud roar.

Next day the weather was still fair. Our march lay
through country like that which we had been traversing
for ten days. Skeletons of mules and oxen were more
frequent; and once or twice by the wayside we passed
the graves of officers or men who had died on the road.
Barbed wire encircled the desolate little mounds. We
camped on the west bank of the Burity River. Here there
is a balsa, or ferry, run by two Parecis Indians, as em-
ployees of the Telegraphic Commission, under the colonel.
Each had a thatched house, and each had two wives—all
these Indians are pagans. All were dressed much like
the poorer peasants of the Brazilian back country, and

Across Nhambiquara Land 211

all were pleasant and well-behaved. The women ran the
ferry about as well as the men. They had no cultivated
fields, and for weeks they had been living only on game
and honey; and they hailed with joy our advent and the
quantities of beans and rice which, together with some
beef, the colonel left with them. They feasted most of
the night. Their houses contained their hammocks,
baskets, and other belongings, and they owned some
poultry. In one house was a tiny parakeet, very much at
home, and familiar, but by no means friendly, with
strangers. There are wild Nhambiquaras in the neigh-
borhood, and recently several of these had menaced the
two ferrymen with an attack, even shooting arrows at
them. The ferrymen had driven them off by firing their
rifles in the air; and they expected and received the colo-
nel’s praise for their self-restraint; for the colonel is
doing all he can to persuade the Indians to stop their
blood feuds. The rifles were short and light Winchester
carbines, of the kind so universally used by the rubber-
gatherers and other adventurous wanderers in the forest
wilderness of Brazil. There were a number of rubber-
trees in the neighborhood, by the way.

We enjoyed a good bath in the Burity, although it
was impossible to make headway by swimming against
the racing current. There were few mosquitoes. On the
other hand, various kinds of piums were a little too
abundant; they vary from things like small gnats to
things like black flies. The small stingless bees have no
fear and can hardly be frightened away when they light
on the hands or face; but they never bite, and merely -
cause a slight tickling as they crawl over the skin. There

212 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

were some big bees, however, which, although they
crawled about harmlessly after lighting if they were un-
disturbed, yet stung fiercely if they were molested. The
insects were not ordinarily a serious bother, but there
were occasional hours when they were too numerous for
comfort, and now and then I had to do my writing in
a head-net and gauntlets.

The night we reached the Burity it rained heavily, and
next day the rain continued. In the morning the mules
were ferried over, while the oxen were swum across.
Half a dozen of our men—whites, Indians, and negroes,
all stark naked and uttering wild cries, drove the oxen
into the river and then, with powerful overhand strokes,
swam behind and alongside them as they crossed, half-
breasting the swift current. It was a fine sight to see
the big, long-horned, staring beasts swimming strongly,
while the sinewy naked men urged them forward, utterly
at ease in the rushing water. We made only a short day’s
journey, for, owing to the lack of grass, the mules had to
be driven off nearly three miles from our line of march,
in order to get them feed. We camped at the headwaters
of a little brook called Huatsui, which is Parecis for
“monkey.”

Accompanying us on this march was a soldier bound
for one of the remoter posts. With him trudged his wife.
They made the whole journey on foot. There were two
children. One was so young that it had to be carried
alternately by the father and mother. The other, a small
boy of eight, and much the best of the party, was already
a competent wilderness worker. He bore his share of
the belongings on the march, and when camp was reached

Across Nhambiquara Land 213

sometimes himself put up the family shelter. They were
mainly of negro blood. Struck by the woman’s uncom-
plaining endurance of fatigue, we offered to take her and
the baby in the automobile, while it accompanied us. But,
alas! this proved to be one of those melancholy cases
where the effort to relieve hardship well endured results
only in showing that those who endure the adversity
cannot stand even a slight prosperity. The woman proved
a querulous traveller in the auto, complaining that she
was not made as comfortable as, apparently, she had
expected ; and after one day the husband declared he was
not willing to have her go unless he went too; and the
family resumed their walk.

In this neighborhood there were multitudes of the
big, gregarious, crepuscular or nocturnal spiders which I
have before mentioned. On arriving in camp, at about
four in the afternoon, I ran into a number of remains of
their webs, and saw a very few of the spiders themselves
sitting in the webs midway between trees. I then strolled
a couple of miles up the road ahead of us under the line
of telegraph-poles. It was still bright sunlight and no
spiders were out; in fact, I did not suspect their presence
along the line of telegraph-poles, although I ought to
have done so, for I continually ran into long strings of
tough, fine web, which got across my face or hands or
rifle barrel. I returned just at sunset and the spiders
were out in force. I saw dozens of colonies, each of
scores or hundreds of individuals. Many were among the
small trees alongside the broad, cleared trail. But most
were dependent from the wire itself. Their webs had all
been made or repaired since I had passed. Each was

214 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

sitting in the middle of his own wheel, and all the wheels
were joined to one another ; and the whole pendent fabric
hung by fine ropes from the wire above, and was in some
cases steadied by guy-ropes, thrown thirty feet off to
little trees alongside. I watched them until nightfall, and
evidently, to them, after their day’s rest, their day’s work
had just begun. Next morning—owing to a desire to
find out what the facts were as regards the ox-carts,
which were in difficulties—Cherrie, Miller, Kermit, and
I walked back to the Burity River, where Colonel Ron-
don had spent the night. It was a misty, overcast
morning, and the spiders in the webs that hung from
the telegraph-wire were just going to their day homes.
These were in and under the big white china insulators
on the telegraph-poles. Hundreds of spiders were al-
ready climbing up into these. When, two or three hours
later, we returned, the sun was out, and not a spider was
to be seen.

Here we had to cut down our baggage and rearrange
the loads for the mule-train. Cherrie and Miller had a
most workmanlike equipment, including a very light tent
and two light flies. One fly they gave for the kitchen
use, one fly was allotted to Kermit and me, and they kept
only the tent for themselves. Colonel Rondon and Lyra
went in one tent, the doctor and Oliveira in another. Each
of us got rid of everything above the sheer necessities.
This was necessary because of the condition of the
baggage-animals. The oxen were so weak that the
effort to bring on the carts had to be abandoned.
Nine of the pack-mules had already been left on the
road during the three days’ march from Utiarity. In

Across Nhambiquara Land = 215

the first expeditions into this country all the baggage-
animals had died; and even in our case the loss was be-
coming very heavy. This state of affairs is due to the
scarcity of forage and the type of country. Good grass
is scanty, and the endless leagues of sparse, scrubby
forest render it exceedingly difficult to find the animals
when they wander. They must be turned absolutely
loose to roam about and pick up their scanty subsistence,
and must be given as long a time as possible to feed and
rest; even under these conditions most of them grow
weak when, as in our case, it is impossible to carry corn.
They cannot be found again until after daylight, and then
hours must be spent in gathering them; and this means
that the march must be made chiefly during the heat
of the day, the most trying time. Often some of the ani-
mals would not be brought in until so late that it was well
on in the forenoon, perhaps midday, before the bulk of
the pack-train started; and they reached the camping-
place as often after nightful as before it. Under such
conditions many of the mules and oxen grew constantly
weaker and ultimately gave out; and it was imperative to
load them as lightly as possible, and discard all luxuries,
especially heavy or bulky luxuries. Travelling through a
wild country where there is little food for man or beast
is beset with difficulties almost inconceivable to the man
who does not himself know this kind of wilderness, and
especially to the man who only knows the ease of civiliza-
tion. A scientific party of some size, with the equipment
necessary in order to do scientific work, can only go at
all if the men who actually handle the problems of food
and transportation do their work thoroughly.

216 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

Our march continued through the same type of high,
nearly level upland, covered with scanty, scrubby forest.
It is the kind of country known to the Brazilians as cha-
padio—pronounced almost as if it were a French word
and spelled shapadén. Our camp on the fourth night
was in a beautiful spot, an open grassy space, beside a
clear, cool, rushing little river. We ourselves reached
this, and waded our beasts across the deep, narrow stream
in the late afternoon; and we then enjoyed a bath and
swim. The loose bullocks arrived at sunset, and with
shrill cries the mounted herdsmen urged them into and
across the swift water. The mule-train arrived long
after nightful, and it was not deemed wise to try to cross
the laden animals. Accordingly the loads were taken off
and brought over on the heads of the men; it was fine
to see the sinewy, naked figures bearing their burdens
through the broken moonlit water to the hither bank.
The night was cool and pleasant. We kindled a fire and
sat beside the blaze. Then, healthily hungry, we gath-
ered around the ox-hides to a delicious dinner of soup,
beef, beans, rice, and coffee.

Next day we made a short march, crossed a brook, and
camped by another clear, deep, rapid little river, swollen
by the rains. All these rivers that we were crossing run
actually into the Juruena, and therefore form part of the
headwaters of the Tapajos; for the Tapajos is a mighty
river, and the basin which holds its headwaters covers an
immense extent of country. This country and the adja-
cent regions, forming the high interior of western Brazil,
will surely some day support a large industrial popula-
tion; of which the advent would be hastened, although

Across Nhambiquara Land 217

not necessarily in permanently better fashion, if Colonel
Rondon’s anticipations about the development of mining,
especially gold mining, are realized. In any event the re-
gion will be a healthy home for a considerable agricul-
tural and pastoral population. Above all, the many swift
streams with their numerous waterfalls, some of great
height and volume, offer the chance for the upgrowth of a
number of big manufacturing communities, knit by rail-
roads to one another and to the Atlantic coast and the
valleys of the Paraguay, Madeira, and Amazon, and feed-
ing and being fed by the dwellers in the rich, hot, alluvial
lowlands that surround this elevated territory. The work
of Colonel Rondon and his associates of the Telegraphic
Commission has been to open this great and virgin land to
the knowledge of the world and to the service of their
nation. In doing so they have incidentally founded the
Brazilian school of exploration. Before their day almost
all the scientific and regular exploration of Brazil was
done by foreigners. But, of course, there was much ex-
ploration and settlement by nameless Brazilians, who were
merely endeavoring to make new homes or advance their
private fortunes: in recent years by rubber-gatherers, for
instance, and a century ago by those bold and restless ad-
venturers, partly of Portuguese and partly of Indian
blood, the Paolistas, from one of whom Colonel Rondon
is himself descended on his father’s side.

The camp by this river was in some old and grown-up
fields, once the seat of a rather extensive maize and man-
dioc cultivation by the Nhambiquaras. On this day
Cherrie got a number of birds new to the collection, and
two or three of them probably new to science, We had

218 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

found the birds for the most part in worn plumage, for
the breeding season, the southern spring and northern
fall, was over. But some birds were still breeding. In
the tropics the breeding season is more irregular than in
the north. Some birds breed at very different times
from that chosen by the majority of their fellows; some
can hardly be said to have any regular season; Cherrie
had found one species of honey-creeper breeding in every
month of the year. Just before sunset and just after sun-
rise big, noisy, blue-and-yellow macaws flew over this
camp. They were plentiful enough to form a loose flock,
but each pair kept to itself, the two individuals always
close together and always separated from the rest. Al-
though not an abundant, it was an interesting, fauna
which the two naturalists found in this upland country,
where hitherto no collections of birds and mammals had
been made. Miller trapped several species of opossums,
mice, and rats which were new tohim. Cherrie got many
birds which he did not recognize. At this camp, among
totally strange forms, he found an old and familiar ac-
quaintance. Before breakfast he brought in several birds;
a dark colored flycatcher, with white forehead and rump
and two very long tail-feathers; a black and slate-blue
tanager; a black ant-thrush with a concealed white spot
on its back, at the base of the neck, and its dull-colored
mate; and other birds which he believed to be new to
science, but whose relationships with any of our birds are
so remote that it is hard to describe them save in tech-
nical language. Finally, among these unfamiliar forms
was a veery, and the sight of the rufous-olive back and

Across Nhambiquara Land 219

faintly spotted throat of this singer of our northern Junes
made us almost homesick.

Next day was brilliantly clear. The mules could not
be brought in until quite late in the morning, and we had
to march twenty miles under the burning tropical sun,
right in the hottest part of the day. From a rise of
ground we looked back over the vast, sunlit landscape, the
endless rolling stretches of low forest. Midway on our
journey we crossed a brook. The dogs minded the heat
much. They continually ran off to one side, lay down in
a shady place, waited until we were several hundred yards
ahead, and then raced after us, overtook us, and repeated
the performance. The pack-train came in about sunset;
but we ourselves reached the Juruena in the middle of the
afternoon.

The Juruena is the name by which the Tapajos goes
along its upper course. Where we crossed, it was a deep,
rapid stream, flowing in a heavily wooded valley with
rather steep sides. We were ferried across on the usual
balsa, a platform on three dugouts, running by the force
of the current on a wire trolley. There was a clearing
on each side with a few palms, and on the farther bank
were the buildings of the telegraph station. This is a
wild country, and the station was guarded by a few sol-
diers under the command of Lieutenant Marino, a native
of Rio Grande do Sul, a blond man who looked like an
Englishman—an agreeable companion, and a good and
resolute officer, as all must be who do their work in this
wilderness. The Juruena was first followed at the end
of the eighteenth century by the Portuguese explorer
Franco, and not again until over a hundred years had

220 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

elapsed, when the Telegraphic Commission not only de-
scended, but for the first time accurately placed and
mapped its course.

There were several houses on the rise of the farther
bank, all with thatched roofs, some of them with walls of
upright tree-trunks, some of them daub and wattle. Into
one of the latter, with two rooms, we took our belongings.
The sand-flies were bothersome at night, coming through
the interstices in the ordinary mosquito-nets. The first
night they did this I got no sleep until morning, when it
was cool enough for me to roll myself in my blanket and
put ona head-net. Afterward we used fine nets of a kind
of cheese-cloth. They were hot, but they kept out all,
or almost all, of the sand-flies and other small tormentors.

Here we overtook the rearmost division of Captain
Amilcar’s bullock-train. Our own route had diverged, in
order to pass the great falls. Captain Amilcar had come
direct, overtaking the pack-oxen, which had left Tapira-
poan before we did, laden with material for the Duvida
trip. He had brought the oxen through in fine shape,
losing only three beasts with their loads, and had himself
left the Juruena the morning of the day we reached
there. His weakest animals left that evening, to make the
march by moonlight; and as it was desirable to give
them thirty-six hours’ start, we halted for a day on the
banks of the river. It was not a wasted day. In addition
to bathing and washing our clothes, the naturalists made
some valuable additions to the collection—including a
boldly marked black, blue, and white jay—and our photo-
graphs were developed and our writing brought abreast
of the date. Travelling through a tropical wilderness in

Across Nhambiquara Land 221

the rainy season, when the amount of baggage that can be
taken is strictly limited, entails not only a good deal of
work, but also the exercise of considerable ingenuity if
the writing and photographing, and especially the preser-
vation, of the specimens are to be done in satisfactory
shape.

At the telegraph office we received news that the voy-
age of Lauriado and Fiala down the Papagaio had opened
with a misadventure. In some bad rapids, not many
miles below the falls, two of the canoes had been upset,
half of their provisions and all of Fiala’s baggage lost,
and Fiala himself nearly drowned. The Papagaio is
known both at the source and the mouth; to descend it
did not represent a plunge into the unknown, as in the case
of the Divida or the Ananas; but the actual water work,
over the part that was unexplored, offered the same pos-
sibilities of mischance and disaster. It is a hazardous
thing to descend a swift, unknown river rushing through
an uninhabited wilderness. To descend or ascend the or-
dinary great highway rivers of South America, such as
the Amazon, Paraguay, Tapajos, and, in its lower course,
the Orinoco, is now so safe and easy, whether by steam-
boat or big, native cargo-boat, that people are apt to for-
get the very serious difficulties offered by the streams,
often themselves great rivers, which run into or form the
upper courses of these same water highways. Few
things are easier than the former feat, and few more diffi-
cult than the latter ; and experience in ordinary travelling
on the lower courses of the rivers is of no benefit what-
ever in enabling a man to form a judgment as to what can
be done, and how to do it, on the upper courses. Failure

222 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

to remember this fact is one of the obstacles in the way
of securing a proper appreciation of the needs and the
results, of South American exploration.

At the Juruena we met a party of Nhambiquaras,
very friendly and sociable, and very glad to see Colonel
Rondon. They were originally exceedingly hostile and
suspicious, but the colonel’s unwearied thoughtfulness
and good temper, joined with his indomitable resolution,
enabled him to avoid war and to secure their friend-
ship and even their aid. He never killed one. Many of
them are known to him personally. He is on remarkably’
good terms with them, and they are very fond of him—
although this does not prevent them from now and then
yielding to temptation, even at his expense, and stealing a
dog or something else which strikes them as offering an
irresistible attraction. They cannot be employed at steady
work; but they do occasional odd jobs, and are excellent
at hunting up strayed mules or oxen; and a few of the
men have begun to wear clothes, purely for ornament.
Their confidence and bold friendliness showed how well
they had been treated. Probably half of our visitors
were men; several were small boys; one was a woman
with a baby; the others were young married women and
girls.

Nowhere in Africa did we come across wilder or more
absolutely primitive savages, although these Indians were
pleasanter and better-featured than any of the African
tribes at the same stage of culture. Both sexes were
well-made and rather good-looking, with fairly good
teeth, although some of them seemed to have skin dis-
eases. They were a laughing, easy-tempered crew, and

At the Juruena we met a party of Nhambiquaras, very friendly and sociable and very glad to see

Colonel Rondon.

From a photograph by Kermit Roosevelt.

Across Nhambiquara Land 223

the women were as well-fed as the men, and were obvi-
ously well-treated, from the savage standpoint; there was
no male brutality like that which forms such a revolting
feature in the life of the Australian black fellows and,
although to a somewhat less degree, in the life of so
many negro and Indian tribes. They were practically
absolutely naked. In many savage tribes the men go abso-
lutely naked, but the women wear a breech-clout or loin-
cloth. In certain tribes we saw near Lake Victoria Ny-
anza, and on the upper White Nile, both men and women
were practically naked. Among these Nhambiquaras
the women were more completely naked than the men,
although the difference was not essential The men
wore a string around the waist. Most of them wore
nothing else, but a few had loosely hanging from this
string in front a scanty tuft of dried grass, or a small
piece of cloth, which, however, was of purely symbolic
use so far as either protection or modesty was concerned.
The women did not wear a stitch of any kind anywhere
on their bodies. They did not have on so much asa string,
or a bead, or even an ornament in their hair. They were
all, men and women, boys and well-grown young girls,
as entirely at ease and unconscious as so many friendly
animals. All of them— men, women, and children,
laughing and talking—crowded around us, whether we
were on horseback or on foot. They flocked into the
house, and when I sat down to write surrounded me
so closely that I had to push them gently away. The
women and girls often stood holding one another’s hands,
or with their arms over one another’s shoulders or around
one another’s waists, offering an attractive picture.

224 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

The men had holes pierced through the septum of the
nose and through the upper lip, and wore a straw through
each hole. The women were not marked or mutilated.
It seems like a contradiction in terms, but it is neverthe-
less a fact that the behavior of these completely naked
women and men was entirely modest. There was never
an indecent look or a consciously indecent gesture. They
had no blankets or hammocks, and when night came sim-
ply lay down in the sand. Colonel Rondon stated that
they never wore a covering by night or by day, and if
it was cool slept one on each side of a small fire. Their
huts were merely slight shelters against the rain.

The moon was nearly full, and after nightfall a few
of the Indians suddenly held an improvised dance for us
in front of our house. There were four men, a small
boy, and two young women or grown girls. Two of the
men had been doing some work for the commission, and
were dressed, one completely and one partially, in ordi-
nary clothes. Two of the men and the boy were practi-
cally naked, and the two young women were absolutely so.
All of them danced in a circle, without a touch of embar-
rassment or impropriety. The two girls kept hold of
each other’s hands throughout, dancing among the men
as modestly as possible, and with the occasional inter-
change of a laugh or jest, in as good taste and temper as
in any dance in civilization. The dance consisted in
slowly going round in a circle, first one way then the
other, rhythmically beating time with the feet to the music
of the song they were chanting. The chants—there
were three of them, all told—were measured and rather
slowly uttered melodies, varied with an occasional half-

Across Nhambiquara Land 225

subdued shrill cry. The women continually uttered a
kind of long-drawn wailing or droning; I am not enough
of a musician to say whether it was an overtone or the
sustaining of the burden of the ballad. The young boy
sang better than any of the others. It was a strange and
interesting sight to see these utterly wild, friendly savages
circling in their slow dance, and chanting their imme-
morial melodies, in the brilliant tropical moonlight, with
the river rushing by in the background, through the lonely
heart of the wilderness.

The Indians stayed with us, feasting, dancing, and
singing until the early hours of the morning. They then
suddenly and silently disappeared in the darkness, and
did not return. In the morning we discovered that they
had gone off with one of Colonel Rondon’s dogs. Prob-
ably the temptation had proved irresistible to one of their
number, and the others had been afraid to interfere, and
also afraid to stay in or return to our neighborhood. We
had not time to go after them; but Rondon remarked that
as soon as he again came to the neighborhood he would
take some soldiers, hunt up the Indians, and reclaim the
dog. It has been his mixture of firmness, good nature,
and good judgment that has enabled him to control these
bold, warlike savages, and even to reduce the warfare be-
tween them and the Parecis. In spite of their good nature
and laughter, their fearlessness and familiarity showed
how necessary it was not to let them get the upper hand.
They are always required to leave all their arms a mile or
two away before they come into the encampment. They
are much wilder and more savage, and at a much lower
cultural level, than the Parecis

226 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

In the afternoon of the day following our arrival there
was a heavy rain-storm which drove into the unglazed
windows, and here and there came through the roof and
walls of our daub-and-wattle house. The heat was in-
tense and there was much moisture in this valley. Dur-
ing the downpour I looked out at the dreary little houses,
showing through the driving rain, while the sheets of
muddy water slid past their door-sills; and I felt a sincere
respect for the lieutenant and his soldiers who were hold-
ing this desolate outpost of civilization. It is an unhealthy
spot; there has been much malarial fever and beriberi—
an obscure and deadly disease.

Next morning we resumed our march. It soon began
to rain and we were drenched when, some fifteen miles
on, we reached the river where we were to camp. After
the great heat we felt quite cold in our wet clothes, and
gladly crowded round a fire which was kindled under a
thatched shed, beside the cabin of the ferryman. This
ferry-boat was so small that it could only take one mule,
or at most two, at a time. The mules and a span of six
oxen dragging an ox-cart, which we had overtaken, were
ferried slowly to the farther side that afternoon, as there
was no feed on the hither bank, where we ourselves
camped. The ferryman was a soldier in the employ of
the Telegraphic Commission. His good-looking, pleas-
ant-mannered wife, evidently of both Indian and negro
blood, was with him, and was doing all she could do as
a housekeeper, in the comfortless little cabin, with its
primitive bareness of furniture and fittings.

Here we saw Captain Amilcar, who had come back to
hurry up his rear-guard. We stood ankle-deep in mud

Across Nhambiquara Land 227

and water, by the swollen river, while the rain beat on us,
and enjoyed a few minutes’ talk with the cool, competent
officer who was doing a difficult job with such workman-
like efficiency. He had no poncho, and was wet through,
but was much too busy in getting his laden oxen forward
to think of personal discomfort. He had had a good deal
of trouble with his mules, but his oxen were still in fair
shape.

After leaving the Juruena the ground became some-
what more hilly, and the scrubby forest was less open,
but otherwise there was no change in the monotonous,
and yet to me rather attractive, landscape. The ant-hills,
and the ant-houses in the trees—arboreal ant-hills, so to
speak—were as conspicuous as ever. The architects of
some were red ants, of others black ants; and others,
which were on the whole the largest, had been built by the
white ants, the termites. The latter were not infrequently
taller than a horseman’s head.

That evening round the camp-fire Colonel Rondon
happened to mention how the brother of one of the
soldiers with us—a Parecis Indian—had been killed by a
jararaca snake. Cherrie told of a narrow escape he had
from one while collecting in Guiana. At night he used to
set traps in camp for small mammals. One night he heard
one of these traps go off under his hammock. He reached
down for it, and as he fumbled for the chain he felt a
snake strike at him, just missing him in the darkness, but
actually brushing his hand. He lit a light and saw that a
big jararaca had been caught in the trap; and he pre-
served itasaspecimen. Snakes frequently came into his
camp after nightfall. He killed one rattlesnake which

228 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

had swallowed the skinned bodies of four mice he had
prepared as specimens; which shows that rattlesnakes do
not always feed only on living prey. Another rattlesnake
which he killed in Central America had just swallowed
an opossum which proved to be of a species new to
science. Miller told how once on the Orinoco he saw on
the bank a small anaconda, some ten feet long, killing one
of the iguanas, big, active, truculent, carnivorous lizards,
equally at home on the land and in the water. Evidently
the iguanas were digging out holes in the bank in which to
lay their eggs; for there were several such holes, and
iguanas working at them. The snake had crushed its
prey to a pulp; and not more than a couple of feet away
another iguana was still busily, and with entire unconcern,
engaged in making its burrow. At Miller’s approach the
anaconda left the dead iguana and rushed into the water,
and the live iguana promptly followed it. Miller also told
of the stone gods and altars and temples he had seen in the
great Colombian forests, monuments of strange civiliza-
tions which flourished and died out ages ago, and of
which all memory has vanished. He and Cherrie told of
giant rivers and waterfalls, and of forests never pene-
trated, and mountains never ascended by civilized man;
and of bloody revolutions that devastated the settled re-
gions. Listening to them I felt that they could write
“Tales of Two Naturalists” that would be worth reading.

They were short of literature, by the way—a party
such as ours always needs books—and as Kermit’s read-
ing-matter consisted chiefly of Camoens and other Portu-
guese, or else Brazilian, writers, I strove to supply the
deficiency with spare volumes of Gibbon. At the end of

Across Nhambiquara Land 229

our march we were usually far ahead of the mule-train,
and the rain was also usually falling. Accordingly we
would sit about under trees, or under a shed or lean-to, if
there was one, each solemnly reading a volume of Gibbon
—and no better reading can be found. In my own case,
as I had been having rather a steady course of Gibbon,
I varied him now and then with a volume of Arséne
Lupin lent me by Kermit.

There were many swollen rivers to cross at this point
of our journey. Some we waded at fords. Some we
crossed by rude bridges. The larger ones, such as the
Juina, we crossed by ferry, and when the approaches were
swampy, and the river broad and swift, many hours might
be consumed in getting the mule-train, the loose bullocks,
and the ox-cart over. We had few accidents, although
we once lost a ferry-load of provisions, which was quite
a misfortune in a country where they could not be re-
placed. The pasturage was poor, and it was impossible
to make long marches with our weakened animals.

At one camp three Nhambiquaras paid us a visit at
breakfast time. They left their weapons behind them be-
fore they appeared, and shouted loudly while they were
still hid by the forest, and it was only after repeated an-
swering calls of welcome that they approached. Always
in the wilderness friends proclaim their presence; a silent
advance marks a foe. Our visitors were men, and stark
naked, as usual. One seemed sick; he was thin, and his
back was scarred with marks of the grub of the loath-
some berni fly. Indeed, all of them showed scars, chiefly
from insect wounds. But the other two were in good
condition, and, although they ate greedily of the food of-

230 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

fered them, they had with them a big mandioc cake, some
honey, and a little fish. One of them wore a high helmet
of puma-skin, with the tail hanging down his back—
handsome head-gear, which he gladly bartered for several
strings of bright coral-red beads. Around the upper
arms of two of them were bands bound so tightly as to cut
into and deform the muscles—a singular custom, seem-
ingly not only purposeless but mischievous, which is
common among this tribe and many others.

The Nhambiquaras are a numerous tribe, covering a
large region. But they have no general organization.
Each group of families acts for itself. Half a dozen
years previously they had been very hostile, and Colonel
Rondon had to guard his camp and exercise every pre-
caution to guarantee his safety, while at the same time
successfully endeavoring to avoid the necessity of himself
shedding blood. Now they are, for the most part,
friendly. But there are groups or individuals that are not.
Several soldiers have been killed at these little lonely
stations; and while in some cases the attack may have
been due to the soldiers having meddled with Nhambi-
quara women, in other cases the killing was entirely
wanton and unprovoked. Sooner or later these criminals
or outlaws will have to be brought to justice; it will not
do to let their crimes go unpunished. Twice soldiers
have deserted and fled to the Nhambiquaras. The runa-
ways were well received, were given wives, and adopted
into the tribe.

The country when opened will be a healthy abode for
white settlers. But pioneering in the wilderness is grim
work for both man and beast. Continually, as we jour-

Across Nhambiquara Land 231

neyed onward, under the pitiless glare of the sun or
through slinding torrents of rain, we passed desolate little
graves by the roadside. They marked the last resting
places of inen who had died by fever, or dysentery, or
Nhambiquara arrows. We raised our hats as our mules
plodded slowly by through the sand. On each grave was
a frail wooden cross, and this and the paling round about
were already stained by the weather as gray as the tree-
trunks of the stunted forest that stretched endlessly on
every side.

The skeletons of mules and oxen were frequent along
the road. Now and then we came across a mule or ox
which had been abandoned by Captain Amilcar’s party,
ahead of us. The animal had been left with the hope that
when night came it would follow along the trail to
water. Sometimes it did so. Sometimes we found it
dead, or standing motionless waiting for death. From
time to time we had to leave behind one of our own
mules,

It was not always easy to recognize what pasturage
the mules would accept as good. One afternoon we
pitched camp by a tiny rivulet, in the midst of the scrubby
upland forest; a camp, by the way, where the piums, the
small, biting flies, were a torment during the hours of
daylight, while after dark their places were more than
taken by the diminutive gnats which the Brazilians ex-
pressively term “polvora,” or powder, and which get
through the smallest meshes of a mosquito-net. The feed
was so scanty, and the cover so dense, at this spot that I
thought we would have great difficulty in gathering the
mules next morning. But we did not. A few hours

{

{
232 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

later, in the afternoon, we camped by a beautiful open
meadow; on one side ran a rapid brook, with ja water-
fall eight feet high, under which we bathed ahd swam,
Here the feed looked so good that we all expryssed pleas-
ure. But the mules did not like it, and after nightfall
they hiked back on the trail, and it was a long and ardu-
ous work to gather them next morning.

I have touched above on the insect pests. Men un-
used to the South American wilderness speak with awe
of the danger therein from jaguars, crocodiles, and
poisonous snakes. In reality, the danger from these
sources is trivial, much less than the danger of being run
down by an automobile at home. But at times the tor-
ment of insect plagues can hardly be exaggerated. There
are many different species of mosquitoes, some of them
bearers of disease. There are many different kinds
of small, biting flies and gnats, loosely grouped together
under various titles. The ones more especially called
piums by my companions were somewhat like our north-
ern black flies. They gorged themselves with blood. At
the moment their bites did not hurt, but they left an itch-
ing scar. Head-nets and gloves are a protection, but are
not very comfortable in stifling hot weather. It is im-
possible to sleep without mosquito-biers. When settlers
of the right type come into a new land they speedily learn
to take the measures necessary to minimize the annoyance
caused by all these pests. Those that are winged have
plenty of kinsfolk in so much of the northern continent as
has not yet been subdued by man. But the most noxious
of the South American ants have, thank Heaven, no rep-
resentatives in North America. At the camp of the

Across Nhambiquara Land 233

piums a column of the carnivorous foraging ants made its
appearance before nightfall, and for a time we feared it
might put us out of our tents, for it went straight through
camp, between the kitchen-tent and our own sleeping-
tents. However, the column turned neither to the right
nor the left, streaming uninterruptedly past for several
hours, and doing no damage except to the legs of any in-
cautious man who walked near it.

On the afternoon of February 15 we reached Campos
Novos. This place was utterly unlike the country we
had been traversing. It was a large basin, several miles
across, traversed by several brooks. The brooks ran in
deep swampy valleys, occupied by a matted growth of tall
tropical forest. Between them the ground rose in bold
hills, bare of forest and covered with grass, on which our
jaded animals fed eagerly. On one of these rounded
hills a number of buildings were ranged in a quadrangle,
for the pasturage at this spot is so good that it is perma-
nently occupied. There were milch cows, and we got
delicious fresh milk; and there were goats, pigs, turkeys,
and chickens. Most of the buildings were made of
upright poles with roofs of palm thatch. One or two
were of native brick, plastered with mud, and before these
there was an enclosure with a few ragged palms, and some
pineapple plants. Here we halted. Our attendants made
two kitchens: one was out in the open air, one was
under a shelter of ox-hide. The view over the surround-
ing grassy hills, riven by deep wooded valleys, was lovely.
The air was cool and fresh. We were not bothered by
insects, although mosquitoes swarmed in every belt of
timber. Yet there has been much fever at this beautiful

234 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

and seemingly healthy place. Doubtless when settlement
is sufficiently advanced a remedy will be developed. The
geology of this neighborhood was interesting—Oliveira
found fossil tree-trunks which he believed to be of cre-
taceous age.

Here we found Amilcar and Mello, who had waited
for us with the rear-guard of their pack-train, and we
enjoyed our meeting with the two fine fellows, than whom
no military service of any nation could produce more
efficient men for this kind of difficult and responsible
work. Next morning they mustered their soldiers, mule-
teers, and pack-ox men and marched off. Reinisch the
taxidermist was with them. We followed in the late
afternoon, camping after a few miles. We left the ox-
cart at Campos Novos; from thence on the trail was only
for pack-animals.

In this neighborhood the two naturalists found many
birds which we had not hitherto met. The most conspic-
uous was a huge oriole, the size of a small crow, with a
naked face, a black-and-red bill, and gaudily variegated
plumage of green, yellow, and chestnut. Very interest-
ing was the false bell-bird, a gray bird with loud, metallic
notes. There was also a tiny soft-tailed woodpecker, no
larger than a kinglet ; a queer humming-bird with a slight-
ly flexible bill; and many species of ant-thrush, tanager,
manakin, and tody. Among these unfamiliar forms was
a vireo looking much like our solitary vireo. At one
camp Cherrie collected a dozen perching birds; Miller a
beautiful little rail; and Kermit, with the small Liger
belt-rifle, a handsome curassow, nearly as big as a turkey
—out of which, after it had been skinned, the cook made

Across Nhambiquara Land = 235

a delicious canja, the thick Brazilian soup of fowl and rice
than which there is nothing better of its kind. All these
birds were new to the collection—no naturalists had pre-
viously worked this region—so that the afternoon’s
work represented nine species new to the collection, six
new genera, and a most excellent soup.

Two days after leaving Campos Novos we reached
Vilhena, where there is a telegraph station. We camped
once at a small river named by Colonel Rondon the
“Twelfth of October,” because he reached it on the day
Columbus discovered America—I had never before
known what day it was!—and once at the foot of a hill
which he had named after Lyra, his companion in the ex-
ploration. The two days’ march—really one full day and
part of two others—was through beautiful country, and
we enjoyed it thoroughly, although there were occasional
driving rain-storms, when the rain came in almost level
sheets and drenched every one and everything. The
country was like that around Campos Novos, and offered
a striking contrast to the level, barren, sandy wastes of
the chapadao, which is a healthy region, where great in-
dustrial centres can arise, but not suited for extensive
agriculture as are the lowland flats. For these forty-
eight hours the trail climbed into and out of steep valleys
and broad basins and up and down hills. In the deep val-
leys were magnificent woods, in which giant rubber-trees
towered, while the huge leaves of the low-growing paco-
va, or wild banana, were conspicuous in the undergrowth.
Great azure butterflies flitted through the open, sunny
glades, and the bell-birds, sitting motionless, uttered their
ringing calls from the dark stillness of the columned

236 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

groves. The hillsides were grassy pastures or else cov-
ered with low, open forest.

A huge frog, brown above, with a light streak down
each side, was found hiding under some sticks in a damp
place in one of the improvised kitchens ; and another frog,
with disks on his toes, was caught on one of the tents.
A coral-snake puzzled us. Some coral-snakes are harm-
less; others are poisonous, although not aggressive. The
best authorities give an infallible recipe for distinguishing
them by the pattern of the colors, but this particular
specimen, although it corresponded exactly in color pat-
tern with the description of the poisonous snakes, never-
theless had no poison-fangs that even after the most mi-
nute examination we could discover. Miller and one of
the dogs caught a sariema, a big, long-legged, bustard-
like bird, in rather a curious way. We were on the
march, plodding along through as heavy a tropic down-
pour as it was our ill fortune to encounter. The sariema,
evidently as drenched and uncomfortable as we were, was
hiding under a bush to avoid the pelting rain. The dog
discovered it, and after the bird valiantly repelled him,
Miller was able to seize it. Its stomach contained about
half a pint of grass-hoppers and beetles and young leaves.
At Vilhena there was a tame sariema, much more famil-
iar and at home than any of the poultry. It was with-
out the least fear of man or dog. The sariema (like the
screamer and the curassow) ought to be introduced into
our barnyards and on our lawns, at any rate in the South-
ern States; it is a good-looking, friendly, and attractive
bird. Another bird we met is in some places far more
intimate, and domesticates itself. This is the pretty little

Across Nhambiquara Land 237

honey-creeper. In Colombia Miller found the honey-
creepers habitually coming inside the houses and hotels at
meal-times, hopping about the table, and climbing into
the sugar-bowl. :

Along this part of our march there was much of what
ata hasty glance seemed to be volcanic rock; but Oliveira
showed me that it was a kind of conglomerate, with bub-
bles or hollows in it, made of sand and iron-bearing earth.
He said it was a superficial quaternary deposit formed by
erosion from the cretaceous rocks, and that there were
here no tertiary deposits. He described the geological
structure of the lands through which we had passed as
follows: The pantanals were of pleistocene age. Along
the upper Sepotuba, in the region of the rapids, there
were sandstones, shales, and clays of permian age. The
rolling country east of this contained eruptive rocks—
a porphyritic diabase, with zeolite, quartz, and agate of
triassic age. With the chapadao of the Parecis plateau
we came to a land of sand and clay, dotted with lumps of
sandstone and pieces of petrified wood; this, according to
Oliveira, is of mesozoic age, possibly cretaceous and sim-
iliar to the South African formation. There are geolo-
gists who consider it as of permian age.

At Vilhena we were on a watershed which drained
into the Gy-Parana, which itself runs into the Madeira
nearly midway between its sources and its mouth. A
little farther along and northward we again came to
streams running ultimately into the Tapajos; and between
them, and close to them, were streamlets which drained
into the Divida and Ananas, whose courses and outlets
were unknown. This point is part of the divide between

238 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

the basins of the Madeira and Tapajos. A singular topo-
graphical feature of the Plan Alto, the great interior
sandy plateau of Brazil, is that at its westernmost end the
southward flowing streams, instead of running into the
Paraguay as they do farther east, form the headwaters of
the Guaporé, which may, perhaps, be called the upper
main stream of the Madeira. These westernmost streams
from the southern edge of the plateau, therefore, begin
by flowing south; then for a long stretch they flow south-
west ; then north, and finally northeast into the Amazon.
According to some exceptionally good geological observ-
ers, this is probably due to the fact that in a remote geo-
logic past the ocean sent in an arm from the south, be-
tween the Plan Alto and what is now the Andean chain.
These rivers then emptied into the Andean Sea. The
gradual upheaval of the soil has resulted in substituting
dry land for this arm of the ocean and in reversing the
course of what is now the Madeira, just as, according to
these geologists, in somewhat familiar fashion the Am-
azon has been reversed, it having once been, at least for
the upper two thirds of its course, an affluent of the
Andean Sea.

From Vilhena we travelled in a generally northward
direction. For a few leagues we went across the chap-
adao, the sands or clays of the nearly level upland plateau,
grassy or covered with thin, stunted forest, the same
type of country that had been predominant ever since we
ascended the Parecis table-land on the morning of the
third day after leaving the Sepotuba. Then, at about
the point where the trail dipped into a basin containing
the headsprings of the Ananas, we left this type of coun-

Across Nhambiquara Land 239

try and began to march through thick forest, not very
high. There was little feed for the animals on the Chap-
adao. There was less in the forest. Moreover, the con-
tinual heavy rains made the travelling difficult and
laborious for them, and they weakened. However, a
couple of marches before we reached Tres Burity, where
there is a big ranch with hundreds of cattle, we were
met by ten fresh pack-oxen, and our serious difficulties
were over.

There were piums in plenty by day, but neither mos-
quitoes nor sand-flies by night; and for us the trip was
very pleasant, save for moments of anxiety about the
mules. The loose bullocks furnished us abundance of
fresh beef, although, as was inevitable under the circum-
stances, of a decidedly tough quality. One of the biggest
of the bullocks was attacked one night by a vampire bat,
and next morning his withers were literally bathed in
blood.

With the chapadao we said good-by to the curious,
gregarious, and crepuscular or nocturnal spiders which
we found so abundant along the line of the telegraph-
wire. They have offered one of the small problems with
which the commission has had to deal. They are not
common in the dry season. They swarm during the
rains; and, when their tough webs are wet, those that lead
from the wire to the ground sometimes effectually short-
circuit the wire. They have on various occasions caused
a good deal of trouble in this manner.

The third night out from Vilhena we emerged for a
moment from the endless close-growing forest in which
our poor animals got such scanty pickings, and came to

240 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

a beautiful open country, where grassy slopes, dotted
with occasional trees, came down on either side of a little
brook which was one of the headwaters of the Duvida.
It was a pleasure to see the mules greedily bury their
muzzles in the pasturage. Our tents were pitched in the
open, near a shady tree, which sent out its low branches
on every side. At this camp Cherrie shot a lark, very
characteristic of the open upland country, and Miller
found two bats in the rotten wood of a dead log. He
heard them squeaking and dug them out; he could not
tell by what method they had gotten in.

Here Kermit, while a couple of miles from our tents,
came across an encampment of Nhambiquaras. There
were twenty or thirty of them—men, women, and a few
children. Kermit, after the manner of honest folk in
the wilderness, advanced ostentatiously in the open, call-
ing out to give warning of his coming. Like surround-
ings may cause like manners. The early Saxons in
England deemed it legal to kill any man who came
through the woods without shouting or blowing a horn;
and in Nhambiquara land at the present time it is against
etiquette, and may be very unhealthy, to come through
the woods toward strangers without loudly announcing
one’s presence. The Nhambiquaras received Kermit
with the utmost cordiality, and gave him pineapple-wine
to drink. They were stark naked as usual; they had no
hammocks or blankets, and their huts were flimsy shelters
of palm-branches. Yet they were in fine condition.
Half a dozen of the men and a couple of boys accom-
panied Kermit back to our camp, paying no slightest heed
to the rain which was falling. They were bold and

Across Nhambiquara Land = 241

friendly, good-natured—at least superficially—and very
inquisitive. In feasting, the long reeds thrust through
holes in their lips did not seem to bother them, and they
laughed at the suggestion of removing them; evidently
to have done so would have been rather bad manners—
like using a knife as an aid in eating ice-cream. They
held two or three dances, and we were again struck by
the rhythm and weird, haunting melody of their chant-
ing. After supper they danced beside the camp-fire ; and
finally, to their delight, most of the members of our own
party, Americans and Brazilians, enthusiastically joined
the dance, while the colonel and I furnished an apprecia-
tive and applauding audience. Next morning, when we
were awakened by the chattering and screaming of the
ntimerous macaws, parrots, and parakeets, we found that
nearly all the Indians, men and women, were gathered
outside the tent. As far as clothing was concerned, they
were in the condition of Adam and Eve before the fall.
One of the women carried a little squirrel monkey. She
put it up the big tree some distance from the tents; and
when she called, it came scampering to her across the
grass, ran up her, and clung to her neck. They would
have liked to pilfer; but as they had no clothes it was
difficult for them to conceal anything. One of the women
was observed to take a fork; but as she did not possess a
rag of clothing of any kind all she could do was to try to
bury the fork in the sand and then sit on it; and it was
reclaimed without difficulty. One or two of the children
wore necklaces and bracelets made of the polished wood
of the tucum palm, and of the molars of small rodents.
Next day’s march led us across a hilly country of good

242 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

pastureland. The valleys were densely wooded, palms of
several kinds being conspicuous among the other trees;
and the brooks at the bottoms we crossed at fords or by
the usual rude pole bridges. On the open pastures were
occasional trees, usually slender bacaba palms, with heads
which the winds had dishevelled until they looked like
mops. It was evidently a fine natural cattle country, and
we soon began to see scores, perhaps hundreds, of the
cattle belonging to the government ranch at Tres Burity,
which we reached in the early afternoon. It is beautifully
situated: the view roundabout is lovely, and certainly the
land will prove healthy when settlements have been defi-
nitely established. Here we revelled in abundance of good
fresh milk and eggs; and for dinner we had chicken canja
and fat beef roasted on big wooden spits; and we even
had watermelons. The latter were from seeds brought
down by the American engineers who built the Madeira-
Marmoré Railroad—a work which stands honorably dis-
tinguished among the many great and useful works done
in the development of the tropics of recent years.
Amilcar’s pack-oxen, which were nearly worn out,
had been left in these fertile pastures. Most of the fresh
oxen which he took in their places were unbroken, and
there was a perfect circus before they were packed and
marched off; in every direction, said the gleeful nar-
rators, there were bucking oxen and loads strewed on
the ground. This cattle-ranch is managed by the colonel’s
uncle, his mother’s brother, a hale old man of seventy,
white-haired but as active and vigorous as ever; with a ©
fine, kindly, intelligent face. His name is Miguel Evan-
galista. He is a native of Matto Grosso, of practically

Across Nhambiquara Land 243

pure Indian blood, and was dressed in the ordinary cos-
tume of the Caboclo—hat, shirt, trousers, and no shoes
or stockings. Within the last year he had killed three
jaguars, which had been living on the mules; as long as
they could get mules they did not at this station molest
the cattle.

It was with this uncle’s father, Colonel Rondon’s own
grandfather, that Colonel Rondon as an orphan spent the
first seven years of his life. His father died before he
was born, and his mother when he was only a year old.
He lived on his grandfather’s cattle-ranch, some fifty
miles from Cuyaba. Then he went to live in Cuyaba
with a kinsman on his father’s side, from whom he took
the name of Rondon; his own father’s name was Da
Silva. He studied in the Cuyaba Government School,
and at sixteen was inscribed as one of the instructors.
Then he went to Rio, served for a year in the army as
an enlisted man in the ranks, and succeeded finally in
getting into the military school. After five years as
pupil he served three years as professor of mathematics
in this school; and then, as a lieutenant of engineers in
the Brazilian army, he came back to his home in Matto
Grosso and began his life-work of exploring the wilder-
ness.

Next day we journeyed to the telegraph station at
Bonofacio, through alternate spells of glaring sunshine
and heavy rain. On the way we stopped at an aldea—
village—of Nhambiquaras. We first met a couple of men
going to hunt, with bows and arrows longer than them-
selves, A rather comely young woman, carrying on her
back a wickerwork basket, or creel, supported by a fore-

244 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

head band, and accompanied by a small child, was with
them. At the village there were a number of men,
women, and children. Although as completely naked
as the others we had met, the members of this band were
more ornamented with beads, and wore earrings made
from the inside of mussel-shells or very big snail-shells.
They were more hairy than the ones we had so far met.
The women, but not the men, completely remove the
hair from their bodies—and look more, instead of less,
indecent in consequence. The chief, whose body was
painted red with the juice of a fruit, had what could
fairly be styled a mustache and imperial; and one old
man looked somewhat like a hairy Ainu, or perhaps even
more like an Australian black fellow. My companion
told me that this probably represented an infusion of
negro blood, and possibly of mulatto blood, from run-
away slaves of the old days, when some of the Matto
Grosso mines were worked by slave labor. They also
thought it possible that this infiltration of African negroes
might be responsible for the curious shape of the bigger
huts, which were utterly unlike their flimsy, ordinary
shelters, and bore no resemblance in shape to those of
the other Indian tribes of this region; whereas they were
not unlike the ordinary beehive huts of the agricultural
African negroes. There were in this village several huts
or shelters open at the sides, and two of the big huts.
These were of closely woven thatch, circular in outline,
with a rounded dome, and two doors a couple of feet
high opposite each other, and no other opening. There
were fifteen or twenty people to each hut. Inside were
their implements and utensils, such as wicker baskets

Across Nhambiquara Land = 245

(some of them filled with pineapples), gourds, fire-sticks,
wooden knives, wooden mortars, and a board for grating
mandioc, made of a thick slab of wood inset with sharp
points of a harder wood. From the Brazilians one or
two of them had obtained blankets, and one a hammock;
and they had also obtained knives, which they sorely
needed, for they are not even in the stone age. One
woman shielded herself from the rain by holding a green
palm-branch down her back. Another had on her head
what we at first thought to be a monkey-skin head-dress.
But it was a little, live, black monkey. It stayed habitu-
ally with its head above her forehead, and its arms and
legs spread so that it lay moulded to the shape of her
head; but both woman and monkey showed some reluc-
tance about having their photographs taken.

Bonofacio consisted of several thatched one-room
cabins, connected by a stockade which was extended to
form an enclosure behind them. A number of tame
parrots and parakeets, of several different species, scram-
bled over the roofs and entered the houses. In the open
pastures near by were the curious, extensive burrows of
a gopher rat, which ate the roots of grass, not emerging
to eat the grass but pulling it into the burrows by the
roots. These burrows bore a close likeness to those of
our pocket gophers. Miller found the animals difficult
to trap. Finally, by the aid of Colonel Rondon, several
Indians, and two or three of our men, he dug one out.
From the central shaft several surface galleries radiated,
running for many rods about a foot below the surface,
with, at intervals of half a dozen yards, mounds where
the loose earth had been expelled. The central shaft ran

246 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

straight down for about eight, feet, and then laterally for
about fifteen feet, to a kind of chamber. The animal
dug hard to escape, but when taken and put on the sur-
face of the ground it moved slowly and awkwardly. It
showed vicious courage. In looks it closely resembled
our pocket gophers, but it had no pockets. This was
one of the most interesting small mammals that we
secured.

After breakfast at Bonofacio a number of Nhambi-
quaras—men, women, and children—strolled in. The
men gave us an exhibition of not very good archery;
when the bow was bent, it was at first held so that the
arrow pointed straight upwards and was then lowered
so that the arrow was aimed at the target. Several of the
women had been taken from other tribes, after their hus-
bands or fathers had been killed; for the Nhambiquaras
are light-hearted robbers and murderers. Two or three
miserable dogs accompanied them, half-starved and
mangy, but each decorated with a collar of beads. The
headmen had three or four wives apiece, and the women
were the burden-bearers, but apparently were not badly
treated. Most of them were dirty, although well-fed
looking, and their features were of a low type; but some,
especially among the children, were quite attractive.

From Bonofacio we went about seven miles, across a
rolling prairie dotted with trees and clumps of shrub.
There, on February. 24, we joined Amilcar, who was
camped by a brook which flowed into the Divida. We
were only some six miles from our place of embarkation
on the Duvida, and we divided our party and our be-
longings, Amilcar, Miller, Mello, and Oliveira were to

Across Nhambiquara Land 247

march three days to the Gy-Parana, and then descend it,
and continue down the Madeira to Manaos. Rondon,
Lyra, the doctor, Cherrie, Kermit, and I, with sixteen
paddlers, in seven canoes, were to descend the Duvida,
and find out whether it led into the Gy-Parané, into the
Madeira, or into the Tapajos. If within a few days it
led into the Gy-Parana, our purpose was to return and
descend the Ananas, whose outlet was also unknown.
Having this in view, we left a fortnight’s provisions for
our party of six at Bonofacio. We took with us pro-
visions for about fifty days; not full rations, for we hoped
in part to live on the country—on fish, game, nuts, and
palm-tops. Our personal baggage was already well cut
down: Cherrie, Kermit, and I took the naturalist’s fly to
sleep under, and a very light little tent extra for any one
who might fall sick. Rondon, Lyra, and the doctor took
one of their own tents. The things that we carried were
necessities — food, medicines, bedding, instruments for
determining the altitude and longitude and latitude—
except a few books, each in small compass: Lyra’s were
in German, consisting of two tiny volumes of Goethe and
Schiller ; Kermit’s were in Portuguese; mine, all in En-
glish, included the last two volumes of Gibbon, the plays
of Sophocles, More’s “Utopia,” Marcus Aurelius, and
Epictetus, the two latter lent me by a friend, Major Ship-
ton of the regulars, our military attaché at Buenos Aires.

If our canoe voyage was prosperous we would gradu-
ally lighten the loads by eating the provisions. If we
met with accidents, such as losing canoes and men in the
rapids, or losing men in encounters with Indians, or if
we encountered overmuch fever and dysentery, the loads

248 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

would lighten themselves. We were all armed. We
took no cartridges for sport. Cherrie had some to be
used sparingly for collecting specimens. The others
were to be used—unless in the unlikely event of having
to repel an attack—only to procure food. The food and
the arms we carried represented all reasonable precau-
tions against suffering and starvation; but, of course, if
the course of the river proved very long and difficult, if
we lost our boats over falls or in rapids, or had to make
too many and too long portages, or were brought to a
halt by impassable swamps, then we would have to reckon
with starvation as a possibility. Anything might happen.
We were about to go into the unknown, and no one could
say what it held.

CHAPTER VIII

THE RIVER OF DOUBT

(): February 27, 1914, shortly after midday, we

started down the River of Doubt into the un-

known. We were quite uncertain whether after
a week we should find ourselves in the Gy-Parana, or
after six weeks in the Madeira, or after three months we
knew not where. That was why the river was rightly
christened the Duvida.

We had been camped close to the river, where the
trail that follows the telegraph-line crosses it by a rough
bridge. As our laden dugouts swung into the stream,
Amilcar and Miller and all the others of the Gy-Parana
party were on the banks and the bridge to wave farewell
and wish us good-by and good luck. It was the height
of the rainy season, and the swollen torrent was swift and
brown. Our camp was at about 12° 1’ latitude south
and 60° 15’ longitude west of Greenwich. Our general
course was to be northward toward the equator, by
waterway through the vast forest.

We had seven canoes, all of them dugouts. One was
small, one was cranky, and two were old, waterlogged,
and leaky. The other three were good. The two old
canoes were lashed together, and the cranky one was
lashed to one of the others. Kermit with two paddlers

249

250 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

went in the smallest of the good canoes; Colonel Rondon
and Lyra with three other paddlers in the next largest;
and the doctor, Cherrie, and I in the largest with three
paddlers. The remaining eight camaradas—there were
sixteen in all—were equally divided between our two
pairs of lashed canoes. Although our personal baggage
was cut down to the limit necessary for health and effi-
ciency, yet on such a trip as ours, where scientific work
has to be done and where food for twenty-two men for
an unknown period of time has to be carried, it is impos-
sible not to take a good deal of stuff; and the seven dug-
outs were too heavily laden.

The paddlers were a strapping set. They were ex-
pert river-men and men of the forest, skilled veterans
in wilderness work. They were lithe as panthers and
brawny as bears. They swam like water-dogs. They
were equally at home with pole and paddle, with axe and
machete; and one was a good cook and others were good
men around camp. They looked like pirates in the pic-
tures of Howard Pyle or Maxfield Parrish; one or two
of them were pirates, and one worse than a pirate; but
most of them were hard-working, willing, and cheerful.
They were white,—or, rather, the olive of southern
Europe-—black, copper-colored, and of all intermediate
shades. In my canoe Luiz the steersman, the headman,
was a Matto Grosso negro; Julio the bowsman was from
Bahia and of pure Portuguese blood; and the third man,
Antonio, was a Parecis Indian.

The actual surveying of the river was done by Colonel
Rondon and Lyra, with Kermit as their assistant. Kermit
went first in his little canoe with the sighting-rod, on

The River of Doubt 251

which two disks, one red and one white, were placed a
metre apart. He selected a place which commanded as
long vistas as possible up-stream and down, and which
therefore might be at the angle of a bend; landed; cut
away the branches which obstructed the view; and set
up the sighting - pole — incidentally encountering mari-
bundi wasps and swarms of biting and singing ants.
Lyra, from his station up-stream, with his telemetre
established the distance, while Colonel Rondon with the
compass took the direction, and made the records. Then
they moved on to the point Kermit had left, and Kermit
established a new point within their sight. The first
half-day’s work was slow. The general course of the
stream was a trifle east of north, but at short intervals it
bent and curved literally toward every point of the com-
pass. Kermit landed nearly a hundred times, and we
made but nine and a third kilometres.

My canoe ran ahead of the surveying canoes. The
height of the water made the going easy, for most of the
snags and fallen trees were well beneath the surface.
Now and then, however, the swift water hurried us
toward ripples that marked ugly spikes of sunken timber,
or toward uprooted trees that stretched almost across the
stream. Then the muscles stood out on the backs and
arms of the paddlers as stroke on stroke they urged us
away from and past the obstacle. If the leaning or
fallen trees were the thorny, slender-stemmed boritana
palms, which love the wet, they were often, although
plunged beneath the river, in full and vigorous growth,
their stems curving upward, and their frond-crowned
tops shaken by the rushing water. It was interesting

252 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

work, for no civilized man, no white man, had ever gone
down or up this river or seen the country through which
we were passing. “The lofty and matted forest rose like
a green wall on either hand. The trees were stately and
beautiful. The looped and twisted vines hung from
them like great ropes. Masses of epiphytes grew both
on the dead trees and the living; some had huge leaves
like elephants’ ears. Now and then fragrant scents were
blown to us from flowers on the banks. There were not
many birds, and for the most part the forest was silent;
rarely we heard strange calls from the depths of the
woods, or saw a cormorant or ibis.

My canoe ran only a couple of hours. Then we halted
to wait for the others. After a couple of hours more, as
the surveyors had not turned up, we landed and made
camp at a spot where the bank rose sharply for a hundred
yards to a level stretch of ground. Our canoes were
moored to trees. The axemen cleared a space for the
tents; they were pitched, the baggage was brought up,
and fires were kindled. The woods were almost sound-
less. Through them ran old tapir trails, but there was
no fresh sign. Before nightfall the surveyors arrived.
There were a few piums and gnats, and a few mosquitoes
after dark, but not enough to make us uncomfortable.
The small stingless bees, of slightly aromatic odor,
swarmed while daylight lasted and crawled over our faces
and hands; they were such tame, harmless little things
that when they tickled too much I always tried to brush
them away without hurting them. But they became a
great nuisance after a while. It had been raining at
intervals, and the weather was overcast; but after the sun

The River of Doubt 253

went down the sky cleared. The stars were brilliant
overhead, and the new moon hung in the west. It was
a pleasant night, the air almost cool, and we slept soundly.

Next morning the two surveying canoes left imme-
diately after breakfast. An hour later the two pairs of
lashed canoes pushed off. I kept our canoe to let Cherrie
collect, for in the early hours we could hear a number of
birds in the woods near by. The most interesting birds
he shot were a cotinga, brilliant turquoise-blue with a
magenta-purple throat, and a big woodpecker, black above
and cinnamon below with an entirely red head and neck.
It was almost noon before we started. We saw a few
more birds; there were fresh tapir and paca tracks at one
point where we landed; once we heard howler monkeys
from the depth of the forest, and once we saw a big otter
in midstream. As we drifted and paddled down the
swirling brown current, through the vivid rain-drenched
green of the tropic forest, the trees leaned over the river
from both banks. When those that had fallen in the
river at some narrow point were very tall, or where it
happened that two fell opposite each other, they formed
barriers which the men in the leading canoes cleared with
their axes. There were many palms, both the burity
with its stiff fronds like enormous fans, and a handsome
species of bacaba, with very long, gracefully curving
fronds. In places the palms stood close together, tower-
ing and slender, their stems a stately colonnade, their
fronds an arched fretwork against the sky. Butterflies
of many hues fluttered over the river. The day was over-
cast, with showers of rain. When the sun broke through
tifts in the clouds, his shafts turned the forest to gold.

254 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

In mid-afternoon we came to the mouth of a big and
swift affluent entering from the right. It was undoubt-
edly the Bandeira, which we had crossed well toward
its head, some ten days before, on our road to Bono-
facio. The Nhambiquaras had then told Colonel Rondon
that it flowed into the Davida. After its junction, with
the added volume of water, the river widened without:
losing its depth. It was so high that it had overflowed
and stood among the trees on the lower levels. Only the
higher stretches were dry. On the sheer banks where
we landed we had to push the canoes for yards or rods
through the branches of the submerged trees, hacking
and hewing. There were occasional bays and ox-bows
from which the current had shifted. In these the coarse
marsh grass grew tall.

This evening we made camp on a flat of dry ground,
densely wooded, of course, directly on the edge of the
river and five feet above it. It was fine to see the speed
and sinewy ease with which the choppers cleared an open
space for the tents. Next morning, when we bathed
before sunrise, we dived into deep water right from the
shore, and from the moored canoes. This second day
we made sixteen and a half kilometres along the course
of the river, and nine kilometres in a straight line almost
due north.

The following day, March 1, there was much rain—
sometimes showers, sometimes vertical sheets of water.
Our course was somewhat west of north and we made
twenty and a half kilometres. We passed signs of Indian _
habitation. There were abandoned palm-leaf shelters on
both banks. On the left bank we came to two or three

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The River of Doubt 255

old Indian fields, grown up with coarse fern and studded
with the burned skeletons of trees. At the mouth of a
brook which entered from the right some sticks stood in
the water, marking the site of an old fish-trap. At one
point we found the tough vine hand-rail of an Indian
bridge running right across the river, a couple of feet
above it. Evidently the bridge had been built at low
water. Three stout poles had been driven into the
stream-bed in a line at right angles to the current. The
bridge had consisted of poles fastened to these supports,
leading between them and from the support at each end
to the banks. The rope of tough vines had been stretched
as a hand-rail, necessary with such precarious footing.
The rise of the river had swept away the bridge, but the
props and the rope hand-rail remained. In the afternoon,
from the boat, Cherrie shot a large dark-gray monkey
with a prehensile tail. It was very good eating.

We camped ona dry level space, but a few feet above,
and close beside, the river—so that our swimming-bath
was handy. The trees were cleared and camp was made
with orderly hurry. One of the men almost stepped on
a poisonous coral-snake, which would have been a serious
thing, as his feet were bare. But I had on stout shoes,
and the fangs of these serpents—unlike those of the
pit-vipers—are too short to penetrate good leather. I
promptly put my foot on him, and he bit my shoe with
harmless venom. It has been said that the brilliant hues
of the coral-snake when in its native haunts really confer
on it a concealing coloration. In the dark and tangled
woods, and to an only less extent in the ordinary varied
landscape, anything motionless, especially if partially

256 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

hidden, easily eludes the eye. But against the dark-
brown mould of the forest floor on which we found this
coral-snake its bright and varied coloration was dis-
tinctly revealing; infinitely more so than the duller
mottling of the jararaca and other dangerous snakes of
the genus lachecis. In the same place, however, we
found a striking example of genuine protective or
mimetic coloration and shape. A rather large insect
larva—at least we judged it to be a larval form, but we
were none of us entomologists—bore a resemblance to
a partially curled dry leaf which was fairly startling.
The tail exactly resembled the stem or continuation of
the midrib of the dead leaf. The flattened body was
curled up at the sides, and veined and colored precisely
like the leaf. The head, colored like the leaf, projected
in front.

We were still in the Brazilian highlands. The forest
did not teem with life. It was generally rather silent;
we did not hear such a chorus of birds and mammals as
we had occasionally heard even on our overland journey,
when more than once we had been awakened at dawn by
the howling, screaming, yelping, and chattering of mon-
keys, toucans, macaws, parrots, and parakeets. There
were, however, from time to time, queer sounds from
the forest, and after nightfall different kinds of frogs
and insects uttered strange cries and calls. In volume
and frequency these seemed to increase until midnight.
Then they died away and before dawn everything was
silent.

At this camp the carregadores ants completely de-
voured the doctor’s undershirt, and ate holes in his mos-

The River of Doubt 257

quito-net ; and they also ate the strap of Lyra’s gun-case.
The little stingless bees, of many kinds, swarmed in such
multitudes, and were so persevering, that we had to wear
our head-nets when we wrote or skinned specimens,

The following day was almost without rain. It was
delightful to drift and paddle slowly down the beautiful
tropical river. Until mid-afternoon the current was not
very fast, and the broad, deep, placid stream bent and
curved in every direction, although the general course
was northwest. The country was flat, and more of the
land was under than above water. Continually we found
ourselves travelling between stretches of marshy forest
where for miles the water stood or ran among the trees.
Once we passed a hillock. We saw brilliantly colored
parakeets and trogons. At last the slow current quick-
ened. Faster it went, and faster, until it began to run
like a mill-race, and we heard the roar of rapids ahead.
We pulled to the right bank, moored the canoes, and
while most of the men pitched camp two or three of them
accompanied us to examine the rapids. We had made
twenty kilometres.

We soon found that the rapids were a serious obstacle.
There were many curls, and one or two regular falls,
perhaps six feet high. It would have been impossible
to run them, and they stretched for nearly a mile. The
carry, however, which led through woods and over rocks
in a nearly straight line, was somewhat shorter. It was
not an easy portage over which to carry heavy loads and
drag heavy dugout canoes. At the point where the de-
scent was steepest there were great naked flat of friable
sandstone and conglomerate. Over parts of these, where

258 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

there was a surface of fine sand, there was a growth of
coarse grass. Other parts were bare and had been worn
by the weather into fantastic shapes—one projection
looked like an old-fashioned beaver hat upside down. In
this place, where the naked flats of rock showed the pro-
jection of the ledge through which the river had cut its
course, the torrent rushed down a deep, sheer-sided, and
extremely narrow channel. At one point it was less
than two yards across, and for quite a distance not more
than five or six yards. Yet only a mile or two above the
rapids the deep, placid river was at least a hundred yards
wide. It seemed extraordinary, almost impossible, that
so broad a river could in so short a space of time contract
its dimensions to the width of the strangled channel
through which it now poured its entire volume.

This has for long been a station where the Nhambi-
quaras at intervals built their ephemeral villages and tilled
the soil with the rude and destructive cultivation of sav-
ages. There were several abandoned old fields, where
the dense growth of rank fern hid the tangle of burnt
and fallen logs. Nor had the Nhambiquaras been long
absent. In one trail we found*what gypsies would have
called a “pateran,” a couple of branches arranged cross-
wise, eight leaves to a branch; it had some special sig-
nificance, belonging to that class of signals, each with
some peculiar and often complicated meaning, which are
commonly used by many wild peoples. The Indians had
thrown a simple bridge, consisting of four long poles,
without a hand-rail, across one of the narrowest parts
of the rock gorge through which the river foamed in its
rapid descent. This sub-tribe of Indians was called the

The River of Doubt 259

Navaité; we named the rapids after them, Navaité
Rapids. By observation Lyra found them to be (in close
approximation to) latitude 11° 44’ south and longitude
60° 18’ west from Greenwich.

We spent March 3 and 4 and the morning of the 5th
in portaging around the rapids. The first night we
camped in the forest beside the spot where we had halted.
Next morning we moved the baggage to the foot of the
rapids, where we intended to launch the canoes, and
pitched our tents on the open sandstone flat. It rained
heavily. The little bees were in such swarms as to be a
nuisance. Many small stinging bees were with them,
which stung badly. We were bitten by huge horse-flies,
the size of bumblebees. More serious annoyance was
caused by the pium and boroshuda flies during the hours
of daylight, and by the polvora, the sand-flies, after dark.
There were a few mosquitoes. ‘The boroshudas were the
worst pests; they brought the blood at once, and left
marks that lasted for weeks. I did my writing in head-
net and gauntlets. Fortunately we had with us several
bottles of “fly dope’—so named on the label—put up,
with the rest of our medicine, by Doctor Alexander
Lambert; he had tested it in the north woods and found
it excellent. I had never before been forced to use such
an ointment, and had been reluctant to take it with me;
but now I was glad enough to have it, and we all of us
found it exceedingly useful. I would never again go into
mosquito or sand-fly country without it. The effect of
an application wears off after half an hour or so, and
under many conditions, as when one is perspiring freely,
it is of no use; but there are times when minute mos-

260 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

quitoes and gnats get through head-nets and under mos-
quito-bars, and when the ointments occasionally renewed
may permit one to get sleep or rest which would otherwise
be impossible of attainment. The termites got into our
tent on the sand-flat, ate holes in Cherrie’s mosquito-net
and poncho, and were starting to work at our duffel-
bags, when we discovered them.

Packing’ the loads across was simple. Dragging the
heavy dugouts was labor. The biggest of the two water-
logged ones was the heaviest. Lyra and Kermit did the
job. All the men were employed at it except the cook,
and one man who was down with fever. A road was
chopped through the forest and a couple of hundred stout
six-foot poles, or small logs, were cut as rollers and placed
about two yards apart. With block and tackle the seven
dugouts were hoisted out of the river up the steep banks,
and up the rise of ground until the level was reached.
Then the men harnessed themselves two by two on the
drag-rope, while one of their number pried behind with
a lever, and the canoe, bumping and sliding, was twitched
through the woods. Over the sandstone flats there were
some ugly ledges, but on the whole the course was down-
hill and relatively easy. Looking at the way the work
was done, at the good-will, the endurance, and the bull-
like strength of the camaradas, and at the intelligence and
the unwearied efforts of their commanders, one could but
wonder at the ignorance of those who do not realize the
energy and the power that are so often possessed by, and
that may be so readily developed in, the men of the trop-
ics. Another subject of perpetual wonder is the attitude
of certain men who stay at home, and still more the

The River of Doubt 261

attitude of certain men who travel under easy conditions,
and who belittle the achievements of the real explorers
of, the real adventures in, the great wilderness. The
impostors and romancers among explorers or would-be
explorers and wilderness wanderers have been unusually
prominent in connection with South America (although
the conspicuous ones are not South Americans, by the
way); and these are fit subjects for condemnation and
derision. But the work of the genuine explorer and
wilderness wanderer is fraught with fatigue, hardship,
and danger. Many of the men of little knowledge talk
glibly of portaging as if it were simple and easy. A
portage over rough and unknown ground is always a
work of difficulty and of some risk to the canoe; and in
the untrodden, or even in the unfrequented, wilderness
risk to the canoe is a serious matter. This particular
portage at Navaité Rapids was far from being unusually
difficult ; yet it not only cost two and a half days of severe
and incessant labor, but it cost something in damage to
the canoes. One in particular, the one in which I had
been journeying, was split in a manner which caused us
serious uneasiness as to how long, even after being
patched, it would last. Where the canoes were launched,
the bank was sheer, and one of the water-logged canoes
filled and went to the bottom; and there was more work
in raising it.

We were still wholly unable to tell where we were
going or what lay ahead of us. Round the camp-fire,
after supper, we held endless discussions and hazarded all
kinds of guesses on both subjects. The river might bend
sharply to the west and enter the Gy-Parana high up or

262 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

low down, or go north to the Madeira, or bend eastward
and enter the Tapajos, or fall into the Canuma and finally
through one of its mouths enter the Amazon direct. Lyra
inclined to the first, and Colonel Rondon to the second,
of these propositions. We did not know whether we had
one hundred or eight hundred kilometres to go, whether
the stream would be fairly smooth or whether we would
encounter waterfalls, or rapids, or even some big marsh
or lake. We could not tell whether or not we would
meet hostile Indians, although no one of us ever went
ten yards from camp without his rifle. We had no idea
how much time the trip would take. We had entered a
land of unknown possibilities.

We started down-stream again early in the afternoon
of March 5. Our hands and faces were swollen from
the bites and stings of the insect pests at the sand-flat
camp, and it was a pleasure once more to be in the middle
of the river, where they did not come, in any numbers,
while we were in motion. The current was swift, but
the river was so deep that there were no serious obstruc-
tions. Twice we went down over slight riffles, which in
the dry season were doubtless rapids; and once we struck
a spot where many whirlpools marked the presence under-
neath of bowlders which would have been above water
had not the river been so swollen by the rains. The dis-
tance we covered in a day going down-stream would have
taken us a week if we had been going up. The course
wound hither and thither, sometimes in sigmoid curves;
but the general direction was east of north. As usual,
it was very beautiful; and we never could tell what might
appear around any curve. In the forest that rose on

The River of Doubt 263

either hand were tall rubber-trees. The surveying canoes,
as usual, went first, while I shepherded the two pairs of
lashed cargo canoes. I kept them always between me
and the surveying canoes—ahead of me until I passed
the surveying canoes, then behind me until, after an hour
or so, I had chosen a place to camp. There was so much
overflowed ground that it took us some little time this
afternoon before we found a flat place high enough to
be dry. Just before reaching camp Cherrie shot a jacu,
a handsome bird somewhat akin to, but much smaller
than, a turkey; after Cherrie had taken its skin, its body
made an excellent canja. We saw parties of monkeys;
and the false bell-birds uttered their ringing whistles in
the dense timber around our tents. The giant ants, an
inch and a quarter long, were rather too plentiful around
this camp; one stung Kermit; it was almost like the sting
of a small scorpion, and pained severely for a couple of
hours. This half-day we made twelve kilometres.

On the following day we made nineteen kilometres,
the river twisting in every direction, but in its general
course running a little west of north. Once we stopped
at a bee-tree, to get honey. The tree was a towering
giant, of the kind called milk-tree, because a thick milky
juice runs freely from any cut. Our camaradas eagerly
drank the white fluid that flowed from the wounds made
by their axes. Itried it. The taste was not unpleasant,
but it left a sticky feeling in the mouth. The helmsman
of my boat, Luiz, a powerful negro, chopped into the tree,
balancing himself with springy ease on a slight scaffold-
ing. The honey was in a hollow, and had been made by
medium-sized stingless bees. At the mouth of the hollow

264 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

they had built a curious entrance of their own, in the
shape of a spout of wax about a foot long. At the open-
ing the walls of the spout showed the wax formation, but
elsewhere it had become in color and texture indistin-
guishable from the bark of the tree. The honey was
delicious, sweet and yet with a tart flavor. The comb
differed much from that of our honey-bees. The honey-
cells were very large, and the brood-cells, which were
small, were in a single instead of a double row. By this
tree I came across an example of genuine concealing col-
oration. A huge tree-toad, the size of a bullfrog, was
seated upright—not squatted flat—on a big rotten limb.
It was absolutely motionless; the yellow brown of its
back, and its dark sides, exactly harmonized in color with
the light and dark patches on the log; the color was as
concealing, here in its natural surroundings, as is the
color of our common wood-frog among the dead leaves
of our woods. When I stirred it up it jumped to a small
twig, catching hold with the disks of its finger-tips, and
balancing itself with unexpected ease for so big a crea-
ture, and then hopped to the ground and again stood mo-
tionless. Evidently it trusted for safety to escaping ob-
servation. We saw some monkeys and fresh tapir sign,
and Kermit shot a jacu for the pot.

At about three o’clock I was in the lead, when the
current began to run more quickly. We passed over one
or two decided ripples, and then heard the roar of rapids
ahead, while the stream began to race. We drove the
canoe into the bank, and then went down a tapir trail,
which led alongside the river, to reconnoitre. A quarter
of a mile’s walk showed us that there were big rapids,

The River of Doubt 265

down which the canoes could not go; and we returned to
the landing. All the canoes had gathered there, and
Rondon, Lyra, and Kermit started down-stream to ex-
plore. They returned in an hour, with the information
that the rapids continued for a long distance, with falls
and steep pitches of broken water, and that the portage
would take several days. We made camp just above the
rapids. Ants swarmed, and some of them bit savagely.
Our men, in clearing away the forest for our tents, left
several very tall and slender accashy palms; the bole of
this palm is as straight as an arrow and is crowned with
delicate, gracefully curved fronds. We had come along
the course of the river almost exactly a hundred kilo-
metres; it had twisted so that we were only about fifty-
five kilometres north of our starting-point. The rock
was porphyritic.

The 7th, 8th, and 9th we spent in carrying the loads
and dragging and floating the dugouts past the series of
rapids at whose head we had stopped.

The first day we shifted camp a kilometre and a half
to the foot of this series of rapids. This’ was a charming
and picturesque camp. It was at the edge of the river,
where there was a little, shallow bay with a beach of firm
sand. In the water, at the middle point of thé beach,
stood a group of three burity palms, their great trunks
rising like columns. Round the clearing in which our
tents stood were several very big trees; two of them were
tubber-trees. Kermit went down-stream five or six kilo-
metres, and returned, having shot a jacu’and found that
at the point which. he had reached there was another
rapids, almost a fall, which would necessitate our again

266 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

dragging the canoes over a portage. Antonio, the Pare-
cis, shot a big monkey; of this I was glad because port-
aging is hard work, and the men appreciated the meat.
So far Cherrie had collected sixty birds on the Duvida, all
of them new to the collection, and some probably new to
science. We saw the fresh sign of paca, agouti, and the
small peccary, and Kermit with the dogs roused a tapir,
which crossed the river right through the rapids; but no
one got a shot at it.

Except at one or perhaps two points a very big dug-
out, lightly loaded, could probably run all these rapids.
But even in such a canoe it would be silly to make the
attempt on an exploring expedition, where the loss of a
canoe or of its contents means disaster; and moreover
such a canoe could not be taken, for it would be impos-
sible to drag it over the portages on the occasions when
the portages became inevitable. Our canoes would not
have lived half a minute in the wild water.

On the second day the canoes and loads were brought
down to the foot of the first rapids. Lyra cleared the
path and laid the logs for rollers, while Kermit dragged
the dugouts up the bank from the water with block and
tackle, with strain of rope and muscle. Then they joined
forces, as over the uneven ground it needed the united
strength of all their men to get the heavy dugouts along.
Meanwhile the colonel with one attendant measured the
distance, and then went on a long hunt, but saw no game.
I strolled down beside the river for a couple of miles, but
also saw nothing. In the dense tropical forest of the
Amazonian basin hunting is very difficult, especially for
men who are trying to pass through the country as rap-

The River of Doubt 267

idly as possible. On such a trip as ours getting game is
largely a matter of chance.

On the following day Lyra and Kermit brought down
the canoes and loads, with hard labor, to the little beach
by the three palms where our tents were pitched. Many
pacovas grew round about. “The men-used their immense
leaves, some of which were twelve feet long and two and
a half feet broad, to roof the flimsy shelters under which
they hung their hammocks. I went into the woods, but
in the tangle of vegetation it would have been a mere
hazard had I seen any big animal. Generally the woods
were silent and empty. Now and then little troops of
birds of many kinds passed—wood-hewers, ant-thrushes,
tanagers, flycatchers; as in the spring and fall similar
troops of warblers, chickadees, and nuthatches pass
through our northern woods. On the rocks and on the
great trees by the river grew beautiful white and lilac
orchids—the sobralia, of sweet and delicate fragrance.
For the moment my own books seemed a trifle heavy,
and perhaps I would have found the day tedious if Kermit
had not lent me the Oxford Book of French Verse. Eus-
tache Deschamp, Joachim du Bellay, Ronsard, the de-
lightful La Fontaine, the delightful but appalling Villon,
Victor Hugo’s “Guitare,” Madame Desbordes-Valmore’s
lines on the little girl and her pillow, as dear little verses
about a child as ever were written—these and many
others comforted me much, as I read them in head-net
and gauntlets, sitting on a log by an unknown river in
the Amazonian forest.

On the 10th we again embarked and made a kilo-
metre and a half, spending most of the time in getting

268 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

past two more rapids. Near the first of these we saw a
small cayman, a jacaré-tinga. At each set of rapids the
canoes were unloaded and the loads borne past on the
shoulders of the camaradas; three of the canoes were
paddled down by a couple of naked paddlers apiece; and
the two sets of double canoes were let down by ropes, one
of one couple being swamped but rescued and brought
safely to shore on each occasion. One of the men was
upset while working in the swift water, and his face was
cut against the stones. Lyra and Kermit did the actual
work with the camaradas. Kermit, dressed substantially
like the camaradas themselves, worked in the water, and,
as the overhanging branches were thronged with crowds
of biting and stinging ants, he was marked and blistered
over his whole body. Indeed, we all suffered more or
less from these ants; while the swarms of biting flies
grew constantly more numerous. The termites ate holes
in my helmet and also in the cover of my cot. Every
one else had a hammock. At this camp we had come
down the river about 102 kilometres, according to the
surveying records, and in height had descended nearly
100 metres, as shown by the aneroid—although the figure
in this case is only an approximation, as an aneroid can-
not be depended on for absolute accuracy of results.
Next morning we found that during the night we had
met with a serious misfortune. We had halted at the
foot of the rapids. The canoes were moored to trees on
the bank, at the tail of the broken water. The two old
canoes, although one of them was our biggest cargo-
carrier, were water-logged and heavy, and one of them
was leaking. In the night the river rose. The leaky

Dragging the canoes over a portage by means of ropes and logs.

From a photograph by Kermil Roosevelt.

The River of Doubt 269

canoe, which at best was too low in the water, must have
gradually filled from the wash of the waves. It sank,
dragging down the other; they began to roll, bursting
their moorings ; and in the morning they had disappeared.
A canoe was launched to look for them; but, rolling over
the bowlders on the rocky bottom, they had at once been
riven asunder, and the big fragments that were soon
found, floating in eddies, or along the shore, showed that
it was useless to look farther. We called these rapids
Broken Canoe Rapids.

It was not pleasant to have to stop for some days;
thanks to the rapids, we had made slow progress, and
with our necessarily limited supply of food, and no
knowledge whatever of what was ahead of us, it was im-
portant to make good time. But there was no alternative.
We had to build either one big canoe or two small ones.
It was raining heavily as the men started to explore
in different directions for good canoe trees. Three—
which ultimately proved not very good for the purpose—
were found close to camp; splendid-looking trees, one
of them five feet in diameter three feet from the ground.
The axemen immediately attacked this one under the
superintendence of Colonel Rondon. Lyra and Kermit
started in opposite directions to hunt. Lyra killed a jacu
for us, and Kermit killed two monkeys for the men.
Toward nightfull it cleared. The moon was nearly full,
and the foaming river gleamed like silver.

Our men were “regional volunteers,” that is, they had
enlisted in the service of the Telegraphic Commission
especially to do this wilderness work, and were highly
paid, as was fitting, in view of the toil, hardship, and

270 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

hazard to life and health. Two of them had been with
Colonel Rondon during his eight months’ exploration in
1909, at which time his men were regulars, from his own
battalion of engineers. His four aides during the closing
months of this trip were Lieutenants Lyra, Amarante,
Alencarliense, and Pyrineus. The naturalist Miranda
Ribeiro also accompanied him. “This was the year when,
marching on foot through an absolutely unknown wilder-
ness, the colonel and his party finally reached the Gy-
Parana, which on the maps was then (and on most maps
is now) placed in an utterly wrong course, and over a
degree out of its real position. When they reached the
affluents of the Gy-Parana a third of the members of the
party were so weak with fever that they could hardly
crawl. They had no baggage. Their clothes were in
tatters, and some of the men were almost naked. For
months they had had no. food except what little game they
shot, and especially the wild fruits and nuts; if it had not
been for the great abundance of the Brazil-nuts they
would all have died. At the first big stream they encoun-
tered they built a canoe, and Alencarliense took command
of it and descended to map the course of the river. With
him went Ribeiro, the doctor Tanageira, who could no
longer walk on account of the ulceration of one foot,
three men whom the fever had rendered unable longer to
walk, and six men who were as yet well enough to handle
the canoe. By the time the remainder of the party came
to the next navigable river eleven more fever-stricken
men had nearly reached the end of their tether. Here
they ran across a poor devil who had for four months
been lost in the forest and was dying of slow starvation.

The River of Doubt 271

He had eaten nothing but Brazil-nuts and the grubs of
insects. He could no longer walk, but could sit erect
and totter feebly for a few feet. Another canoe was
built, and in it Pyrineus started down-stream with the
eleven fever patients and the starving wanderer. Colonel
Rondon kept up the morale of his men by still carrying
out the forms of military discipline. The ragged bugler
had his bugle. Lieutenant Pyrineus had lost every par-
ticle of his clothing except a hat and a pair of drawers.
The half-naked lieutenant drew up his eleven fever pa-
tients in line ; the bugle sounded; every one came to atten-
tion; and the haggard colonel read out the orders of the
day. Then the dugout with its load of sick men started
down-stream, and Rondon, Lyra, Amarante, and the
twelve remaining men resumed their weary march. When
a fortnight later they finally struck a camp of rubber-
gatherers three of the men were literally and entirely
naked. Meanwhile Amilcar had ascended the Jacyparana
a month or two previously with provisions to meet them;
for at that time the maps incorrectly treated this river as
larger, instead of smaller, than the Gy-Parana, which
they were in fact descending; and Colonel Rondon had
supposed that they were going down the former stream.
Amilcar returned after himself suffering much hardship
and danger. The different parties finally met at the
mouth of the Gy-Parana, where it enters the Madeira.
The lost man whom they had found seemed on the road
to recovery, and they left him at a ranch, on the Madeira,
where he could be cared for; yet after they had left him
they heard that he had died.

On the 12th the men were still hard at work hollow-

272 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

ing out the hard wood of the big tree, with axe and adze,
while watch and ward were kept over them to see that the
idlers did not shirk at the expense of the industrious.
Kermit and Lyra again hunted; the former shot a curas-
sow, which was welcome, as we were endeavoring in all
ways to economize our food supply. We were using
the tops of palms also. I spent the day hunting in the
woods, for the most part by the river, but saw nothing.
In the season of the rains game is away from the river
and fish are scarce and turtles absent. Yet it was pleas-
ant to be in the great silent forest. Here and there grew
immense trees, and on some of them mighty buttresses
sprang from the base. ‘The lianas and vines were of
every size and shape. Some were twisted aad some
were not. Some came down: straight and slender from
branches a hundred feet above. Others curved like long
serpents around the trunks. Others were like knotted
cables. In the shadow there was little noise. The wind
rarely moved the hot, humid air. There were few flowers
or birds. Insects were altogether too abundant, and even
when travelling slowly it was impossible always to avoid
them—not to speak of our constant companions the bees,
mosquitoes, and especially the boroshudas or bloodsuck-
ing flies. Now while bursting through a tangle I dis-
turbed a nest of wasps, whose resentment was active;
now I heedlessly stepped among the outliers of a smali
party of the carnivorous foraging ants; now, grasping a
branch as I stumbled, I shook down a shower of fire-
ants; and among all these my attention was particularly
arrested by the bite of one of the giant ants, which stung
like a hornet, so that I felt it for three hours. The cama-

The River of Doubt 27%

radas generally went barefoot or only wore sandals; and
their ankles and feet were swollen and inflamed from the
bites of the boroshudas and ants, some being actually in-
capacitated from work. All of us suffered more or less,
our faces and hands swelling slightly from the boroshuda
bites; and in spite of our clothes we were bitten all over
our bodies, chiefly by ants and the small forest ticks. Be-
cause of the rain and the heat our clothes were usually
wet when we took them off at night, and just as wet when
we put them on again in the morning.

All day on the 13th the men worked at the canoe,
making good progress. In rolling and shifting the huge,
heavy tree-trunk every one had to assist now and then.
The work continued until ten in the evening, as the
weather was clear. After nightfall some of the men held
candles and the others plied axe or adze, standing within
or beside the great, half-hollowed logs, while the flicker
of the lights showed the tropic forest rising in the dark-
ness round about. The night air was hot and still and
heavy with moisture. The men were stripped to the
waist. Olive and copper and ebony, their skins glistened
as if oiled, and rippled with the ceaseless play of the thews
beneath.

On the morning of the 14th the work was resumed in
a torrential tropic downpour. The canoe was finished,
dragged down to the water, and launched soon after mid-
day, and another hour or so saw us under way. The
descent was marked, and the swollen river raced along.
Several times we passed great whirlpools, sometimes
shifting, sometimes steady. Half a dozen times we ran
over rapids, and, although they were not high enough to

274 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

have been obstacles to loaded Canadian canoes, two of
them were serious to us. Our heavily laden, clumsy
dugouts were sunk to within three or four inches of the
surface of the river, and, although they were buoyed on
each side with bundles of burity-palm branch-stems, they
shipped a great deal of water in the rapids. The two
biggest rapids we only just made, and after each we had
hastily to push ashore in order to bail. In one set of big
ripples or waves my canoe was nearly swamped. Ina
wilderness, where what is ahead is absolutely unknown,
alike in terms of time, space, and method—for we had
no idea where we would come out, how we would get out,
or when we would get out—it is of vital consequence not
to lose one’s outfit, especially the provisions; and yet it is
of only less consequence to go as rapidly as possible lest
all the provisions be exhausted and the final stages of the
expedition be accomplished by men weakened from semi-
starvation, and therefore ripe for disaster. On this occa-
sion, of the two hazards, we felt it necessary to risk run-
ning the rapids; for our progress had been so very slow
that unless we made up the time, it was probable that
we would be short of food before we got where we could
expect to procure any more except what little the country
in the time of the rains and floods, might yield. We ran
until after five, so that the work of pitching camp was
finished in the dark. We had made nearly sixteen kilo-
metres in a direction slightly east of north. This even-
ing the air was fresh and cool.

The following morning, the 15th of March, we
started in good season. For six kilometres we drifted
and paddled down the swift river without incident. At

The River of Doubt 275

times we saw lofty Brazil-nut trees rising above the rest
of the forest on the banks; and back from the river
these trees grow to enormous proportions, towering like
giants. There were great rubber-trees also, their leaves
always in sets of threes. Then the ground on either
hand rose into bowlder-strewn, forest-clad hills and the
roar of broken water announced that once more our
course was checked by dangerous rapids. Round a bend
we came on them; a wide descent of white water, with
an island in the middle, at the upper edge. Here grave
misfortune befell us, and graver misfortune was nar-
rowly escaped.

Kermit, as usual, was leading in his canoe. It was
the smallest and least seaworthy of all. He had in it
little except a week’s supply of our boxed provisions
and a few tools; fortunately none of the food for the
camaradas. His dog Trigueiro was with him. Besides
himself, the crew consisted of two men: Jodo, the helms-
man, or pilot, as he is called in Brazil, and Simplicio, the
bowsman. Both were negroes and exceptionally good
men in every way. Kermit halted his canoe on the left
bank, above the rapids, and waited for the colonel’s
canoe. Then the colonel and Lyra walked down the bank
to see what was ahead. Kermit took his canoe across
to the island to see whether the descent could be better
accomplished on the other side. Having made his in-
vestigation, he ordered the men to return to the bank he
had left, and the dugout was headed up-stream accord-
ingly. Before they had gone a dozen yards, the paddlers
digging their paddles with all their strength into the
swift current, one of the shifting whirlpools of which

276 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

I have spoken came down-stream, whirled them around,
and swept them so close to the rapids that no human
power could avoid going over them. As they were drift-
ing into them broadside on, Kermit yelled to the steers-
man to turn her head, so as to take them in the only
way that offered any chance whatever of safety. The
water came aboard, wave after wave, as they raced
down. They reached the bottom with the canoe upright,
but so full as barely to float, and the paddlers yrged her
toward the shore. They had nearly reached the bank
when another whirlpool or whirling eddy tore them away
and hurried them back to midstream, where the dugout
filled and turned over. Jodo, seizing the rope, started to
swim ashore; the rope was pulled from his hand, but he
reached the bank. Poor Simplicio must have been pulled
under at once and his life beaten out on the bowlders be-
neath the racing torrent. He never rose again, nor did
we ever recover his body. Kermit clutched his rifle, his
favorite 405 Winchester with which he had done most of
his hunting both in Africa and America, and climbed on
the bottom of the upset boat. In a minute he was swept
into the second series of rapids, and whirled away from
the rolling boat, losing his rifle. The water beat his hel-
met down over his head and face and drove him beneath
the surface; and when he rose at last he was almost
drowned, his breath and strength almost spent. He was
in swift but quiet water, and swam toward an overhang-
ing branch. His jacket hindered him, but he knew he
was too nearly gone to be able to get it off, and, thinking
with the curious calm one feels when death is but a mo-
ment away, he realized that the utmost his failing strength

The River of Doubt aoo7

could do was to reach the branch. He reached, and
clutched it, and then almost lacked strength to haul him-
self out on the land. Good Trigueiro had faithfully
swum alongside him through the rapids, and now himself
scrambled ashore. It was a very narrow escape. Ker-
mit was a great comfort and help to me on the trip; but
the fear of some fatal accident befalling him was always
anightmare tome. He was to be married as soon as the
trip was over ; and it did not seem to me that I could bear
to bring bad tidings to his betrothed and to his mother.

Simplicio was unmarried. Later we sent to his mother
all the money that would have been his had he lived.
The following morning we put on one side of the post
erected to mark our camping-spot the following inscrip-
tion, in Portuguese:

“In TuHese Rapips Diep Poor SIMPLicio.”

On an expedition such as ours death is one of the acci-
dents that may at any time occur, and narrow escapes
from death are too common to be felt as they would be
felt elsewhere. One mourns sincerely, but mourning can-
not interfere with labor. We immediately proceeded
with the work of the portage. From the head to the tail
of this series of rapids the distance was about six hundred
yards. A path was cut along the bank, over which the
loads were brought. The empty canoes ran the rapids
without mishap, each with two skilled paddlers. One
of the canoes almost ran into a swimming tapir at the
head of the rapids; it went down the rapids, and then
climbed out of the river. Kermit accompanied by Jodo,
went three or four miles down the river, looking for the

278 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

body of Simplicio and for the sunk canoe. He found
neither. But he found a box of provisions and a paddle,
and salvaged both by swimming into midstream after
them. He also found that a couple of kilometres below
there was another stretch of rapids, and following them
on the left-hand bank to the foot he found that they
were worse than the ones we had just passed, and im-
passable for canoes on this left-hand side.

We camped at the foot of the rapids we had just
passed. There were many small birds here, but it was ex-
tremely difficult to see or shoot them in the lofty tree tops,
and to find them in the tangle beneath if they were shot.
However, Cherrie got four species new to the collection.
One was a tiny hummer, one of the species known as
woodstars, with dainty but not brilliant plumage; its kind
is never found except in the deep, dark woods, not coming
out into the sunshine. Its crop was filled with ants;
when shot it was feeding at a cluster of long red flowers.
He also got a very handsome trogon and an exquisite
little tanager, as brilliant as a cluster of jewls; its throat
was lilac, its breast turquoise, its crown and forehead
topaz, while above it was glossy purple-black, the lower
part of the back ruby-red. This tanager was a female;
I can hardly imagine that the male is more brilliantly
colored. The fourth bird was a queer hawk of the genus
ibycter, black, with a white belly, naked red cheeks and
throat and red legs and feet. Its crop was filled with the
seeds of fruits and a few insect remains; an extraordi-
nary diet for a hawk.

The morning of the 16th was dark and gloomy.
Through sheets of blinding rain we left our camp of

The River of Doubt 279

misfortune for another camp where misfortune also
awaited us. Less than half an hour took our dugouts
to the head of the rapids below. As Kermit had already
explored the left-hand side, Colonel Rondon and Lyra
went down the right-hand side and found a channel
which led round the worst part, so that they deemed it
possible to let down the canoes by ropes from the bank.
The distance to the foot of the rapids was about a kilo-
metre. While the loads were being brought down the
left bank, Luiz and Antonio Correa, our two best water-
men, started to take a canoe down the right side, and
Colonel Rondon walked ahead to see anything he could
about the river. He was accompanied by one of our
three dogs, Lobo. After walking about a kilometre he
heard ahead a kind of howling noise, which he thought
was made by spider-monkeys. He walked in the direc-
tion of the sound and Lobo ran ahead. In a minute he
heard Lobo yell with pain, and then, still yelping, come
toward him, while the creature that was howling also
approached, evidently in pursuit. In a moment a second
yell from Lobo, followed by silence, announced that he
was dead; and the sound of the howling when near con-
vinced Rondon that the dog had been killed by an Indian,
doubtless with two arrows. Probably the Indian was
howling to lure the spider-monkeys toward him. Ron-
don fired his rifle in the air, to warn off the Indian or
Indians, who in all probability had never seen a civilized
man, and certainly could not imagine that one was in
the neighborhood. He then returned to the foot of the
rapids, where the portage was still going on, and, in com-
pany with Lyra, Kermit, and Antonio Parecis, the Indian,

280 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

walked back to where Lobo’s body lay. Sure enough he
found him, slain by two arrows. One arrow-head was in
him, and near by was a strange stick used in the very
primitive method of fishing of all these Indians. An-
tonio recognized its purpose. The Indians, who were ap-
parently two or three in number, had fled. Some beads
and trinkets were left on the spot to show that we were
not angry and were friendly.

Meanwhile Cherrie stayed at the head and I at the
foot of the portage as guards. Luiz and Antonio Cor-
rea brought down one canoe safely. The next was the
new canoe, which was very large and heavy, being made
of wood that would not float. In the rapids the rope
broke, and the canoe was lost, Luiz being nearly drowned.

It was a very bad thing to lose the canoe, but it was
even worse to lose the rope and pulleys. This meant
that it would be physically impossible to hoist big canoes
up even small hills or rocky hillocks, such as had been
so frequent beside the many rapids we had encountered.
It was not wise to spend the four days necessary to build
new canoes where we were, in danger of attack from
the Indians. Moreover, new rapids might be very near,
in which case the new canoes would hamper us. Yet
the four remaining canoes would not carry all the loads
and all the men, no matter how we cut the loads down;
and we intended to cut everything down at once. We
had been gone eighteen days. We had used over a third
of our food. We had gone only 125 kilometres, and it
was probable that we had at least five times, perhaps six
or seven times, this distance still to go. We had taken
a fortnight to descend rapids amounting in the aggre-

The River of Doubt 281

gate to less than seventy yards of fall; a very few yards
of fall makes a dangerous rapid when the river is swollen
and swift and there are obstructions. We had only one
aneroid to determine our altitude, and therefore could
make merely a loose approximation to it, but we prob-
ably had between two and three times this descent in the
aggregate of rapids ahead of us. So far the country had
offered little in the way of food except palm-tops. We
had lost four canoes and one man. We were in the
country of wild Indians, who shot well with their bows.
It behooved us to go warily, but also to make all speed
possible, if we were to avoid serious trouble.

The best plan seemed to be to march thirteen men
down along the bank, while the remaining canoes, lashed
two and two, floated down beside them. If after two
or three days we found no bad rapids, and there seemed
a reasonable chance of going some distance at decent
speed, we could then build the new canoes—preferably
two small ones, this time, instead of one big one. We
left all the baggage we could. We were already down
as far as comfort would permit; but we now struck off
much of the comfort. Cherrie, Kermit, and I had been
sleeping under a very light fly; and there was another
small light tent for one person, kept for possible emer-
gencies. The last was given to me for my cot, and all
five of the others swung their hammocks under the big
fly. This meant that we left two big and heavy tents
behind. A box of surveying instruments was also aban-
doned. Each of us got his personal belongings down to
one box or duffel-bag—although there was only a small
diminution thus made; because we had so little that the

282 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

only way to make a serious diminution was to restrict
ourselves to the clothes on our backs.

The biting flies and ants were to us a source of dis-
comfort and at times of what could fairly be called tor-
ment. But to the camaradas, most of whom went bare-
foot or only wore sandals—and they never did or would
wear shoes—the effect was more serious. They wrapped
their legs and feet in pieces of canvas or hide; and the
feet of three of them became so swollen that they were
crippled and could not walk any distance. The doctor,
whose courage and cheerfulness never flagged, took ex-
cellent care of them. Thanks to him, there had been
among them hitherto but one or two slight cases of fever.
He administered to each man daily a half-gram—nearly
eight grains—of quinine, and every third or fourth day
a double dose.

The following morning Colonel Rondon, Lyra, Ker-
mit, Cherrie, and nine of the camaradas started in single
file down the bank, while the doctor and I went in the
two double canoes, with six camaradas, three of them
the invalids with swollen feet. We halted continually,
as we went about three times as fast as the walkers; and
we traced the course of the river. After forty minutes’
actual going in the boats we came to some rapids; the
unloaded canoes ran them without difficulty, while the
loads were portaged. In an hour and a half we were
again under way, but in ten minutes came to other rapids,
where the river ran among islands, and there were several
big curls. The clumsy, heavily laden dugouts, lashed
in couples, were unwieldy and hard to handle. The
rapids came just round a sharp bend, and we got caught

The River of Doubt 283

in the upper part of the swift water and had to run the
first set of rapids in consequence. We in the leading pair
of dugouts were within an ace of coming to grief on
some big bowlders against which we were swept by a
cross current at the turn. All of us paddling hard—
scraping and bumping—we got through by the skin of our
teeth, and managed to make the bank and moor our
dugouts. It was a narrow escape from grave disaster.
The second pair of lashed dugouts profited by our experi-
ence, and made the run—with risk, but with less risk—
and moored beside us. Then all the loads were taken
out, and the empty canoes were run down through the
least dangerous channels among the islands.

This was a long portage, and we camped at the foot
of the rapids, having made nearly seven kilometres. Here
a little river, a rapid stream of volume equal to the Di-
vida at the point where we first embarked, joined from
the west. Colonel Rondon and Kermit came to it first,
and the former named it Rio Kermit. There was in it
a waterfall about six or eight feet high, just above the
junction. Here we found plenty of fish. Lyra caught
two pacu, good-sized, deep-bodied fish. They were de-
licious eating. Antonio the Parecis said that these fish
never came up heavy rapids in which there were falls
they had to jump. We could only hope that he was
correct, as in that case the rapids we would encounter in
the future would rarely be so serious as to necessitate
our dragging the heavy dugouts overland. Passing the
rapids we had hitherto encountered had meant severe
labor and some danger. But the event showed that he
was mistaken. The worst rapids were ahead of us.

284 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

While our course as a whole had been almost due
north, and sometimes east of north, yet where there were
rapids the river had generally, although not always,
turned westward. This seemed to indicate that to the
east of us there was a low northward projection of the
central plateau across which we had travelled on mule-
back. This is the kind of projection that appears on
the maps of this region asa sierra. Probably it sent low
spurs to the west, and the farthest points of these spurs
now and then caused rapids in our course (for the rapids
generally came where there were hills) and for the mo-
ment deflected the river westward from its general down-
hill trend to the north. There was no longer any ques-
tion that the Duvida was a big river, a river of real
importance. It was not a minor affluent of some other
affluent. But we were still wholly in the dark as to
where it came out. It was still possible, although ex-
ceedingly improbable, that it entered the Gy-Parana, as
another river of substantially the same size, near its
mouth. It was much more likely, but not probable, that
it entered the Tapajos. It was probable, although far
from certain, that it entered the Madeira low down, near
its point of junction with the Amazon. In this event it
was likely, although again far from certain, that its mouth
would prove to be the Aripuanan. The Aripuanan does
not appear on the maps as a river of any size; on a good
standard map of South America which I had with me its
name does not appear at all, although a dotted indication
of a small river or creek at about the right place prob-
ably represents it. Nevertheless, from the report of one
of his lieutenants who had examined its mouth, and from

The River of Doubt 285

the stories of the rubber-gatherers, or seringuerros,
Colonel Rondon had come to the conclusion that this was
the largest affluent of the Madeira, with such a body of
water that it must have a big drainage basin. He thought
that the Duvida was probably one of its head streams—
although every existing map represented the lay of the
land to be such as to render impossible the existence of
such a river system and drainage basin. The rubber-
gatherers reported that they had gone many days’ journey
up the river, to a point where there was a series of heavy
rapids with above them the junction-point of two large
rivers, one entering from the west. Beyond this they had
difficulties because of the hostility of the Indians; and
where the junction-point was no one could say. On the
chance Colonel Rondon had directed one of his subordi-
nate officers, Lieutenant Pyrineus, to try to meet us, with
boats and provisions, by ascending the Aripuanan to the
point of entry of its first big affluent. This was the course
followed when Amilcar had been directed to try to meet
the explorers who in 1909 came down the Gy-Parana.
At that time the effort was a failure, and the two parties
never met; but we might have better luck, and in any
event the chance was worth taking.

On the morning following our camping by the mouth
of the Rio Kermit, Colonel Rondon took a good deal of
pains in getting a big post set up at the entry of the
smaller river into the Davida. Then he summoned me,
and all the others, to attend the ceremony of its erection.
We found the camaradas drawn up in line, and the colonel
preparing to read aloud “the orders of the day.” To the
post was nailed a board with “Rio Kermit” on it; and

286 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

the colonel read the orders reciting that by the direction
of the Brazilian Government, and inasmuch as the un-
known river was evidently a great river, he formally
christened it the Rio Roosevelt. This was a complete
surprise tome. Both Lauro Miiller and Colonel Rondon
had spoken to me on the subject, and I had urged, and
Kermit had urged, as strongly as possible, that the name
be kept as Rio da Duvida. We felt that the “River of
Doubt” was an unusually good name; and it is always
well to keep a name of this character. But my kind
friends insisted otherwise, and it would have been churl-
ish of me to object longer. I was much touched by their
action, and by the ceremony itself. At the conclusion of
the reading Colonel Rondon led in cheers for the United
States and then for me and for Kermit; and the cama-
radas cheered with a will. I proposed three cheers for
Brazil and then for Colonel Rondon, and Lyra, and the
doctor, and then for all the camaradas. Then Lyra said
that everybody had been cheered except Cherrie; and so
we all gave three cheers for Cherrie, and the meeting
broke up in high good humor.

Immediately afterward the walkers set off on their
march down-stream, looking for good canoe-trees. In
a quarter of an hour we followed with the canoes. As
often as we overtook them we halted until they had again
gone a good distance ahead. They soon found fresh
Indian sign, and actually heard the Indians; but the latter
fled in panic. They came on a little Indian fishing vil-
lage, just abandoned. The three low, oblong huts, of
palm-leaves, had each an entrance for a man on all fours,
but no other opening. They were dark inside, doubtless

The River of Doubt 287

as a protection against the swarms of biting flies. On
a pole in this village an axe, a knife, and some strings of
red beads were left, with the hope that the Indians would
return, find the gifts, and realize that we were friendly.
We saw further Indian sign on both sides of the river.

After about two hours and a half we came on a little
river entering from the east. It was broad but shallow,
and at the point of entrance rushed down, green and
white, over a sharply inclined sheet of rock. It was a
lovely sight and we halted to admire it. Then on we
went, until, when we had covered about eight kilometres,
we came on a stretch of rapids. The canoes ran them
with about a third of the loads, the other loads being
carried on the men’s shoulders. At the foot of the rapids
we camped, as there were several good canoe-trees near,
and we had decided to build two rather small canoes.
After dark the stars came out; but in the deep forest the
glory of the stars in the night of the sky, the serene radi-
ance of the moon, the splendor of sunrise and sunset, are
never seen as they are seen on the vast open plains.

The following day, the 19th, the men began work on
the canoes. The ill-fated big canoe had been made of
wood so hard that it was difficult to work, and so heavy
that the chips sank like lead in the water. But these
trees were araputangas, with wood which was easier to
work, and which floated. Great buttresses, or flanges,
jutted out from their trunks at the base, and they bore
big hard nuts or fruits which stood erect at the ends of
the branches. The first tree felled proved rotten, and
moreover it was chopped so that it smashed a number
of lesser trees into the kitchen, overthrowing everything,

288 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

but not inflicting serious damage. Hard-working, will-
ing, and tough though the camaradas were, they naturally
did not have the skill of northern lumberjacks.

We hoped to finish the two canoes in three days. A
space was cleared in the forest for our tents. Among
the taller trees grew huge-leafed pacovas, or wild ban-
anas. We bathed and swam in the river, although in it
we caught piranhas. Carregadores ants swarmed all
around our camp. As many of the nearest of their holes
as we could we stopped with fire; but at night some of
them got into our tents and ate things we could ill spare.
In the early morning a column of foraging ants appeared,
and we drove them back, also with fire. When the sky
was not overcast the stn was very hot, and we spread
out everything to dry. There were many wonderful
butterflies round about, but only a few birds. Yet in the
early morning and late afternoon there was some attrac-
tive bird music in the woods. The two best performers
were our old friend the false bell-bird, with its series of
ringing whistles, and a shy, attractive ant-thrush. The
latter walked much on the ground, with dainty move-
ments, courtesying and raising its tail; and in accent and
sequence, although not in tone or time, its song resem-
bled that of our white-throated sparrow.

It was three weeks since we had started down the
River of Doubt. We had come along its winding course

-about 140 kilometres, with a descent of somewhere in the
neighborhood of 124 metres. It had been slow progress.
We could not tell what physical obstacles were ahead of
us, nor whether the Indians would be actively hostile.
But a river normally describes in its course a parabola,

The River of Doubt 289

the steep descent being in the upper part; and we hoped
that in the future we should not have to encounter so
many and such difficult rapids as we had already encoun-
tered, and that therefore we would make better time—a
hope destined to failure.

CHAPTER IX

DOWN AN UNKNOWN RIVER INTO THE
EQUATORIAL FOREST

P A HE mightiest river in the world is the Amazon.
It runs from west to east, from the sunset to the
sunrise, from the Andes to the Atlantic. The

main stream flows almost along the equator, while the

basin which contains its affluents extends many degrees
north and south of the equator. The gigantic equatorial
river basin is filled with an immense forest, the largest in
the world, with which no other forest can be compared
save those of western Africa and Malaysia. We were
within the southern boundary of this great equatorial
forest, on a river which was not merely unknown but
unguessed at, no geographer having ever suspected its
existence. This river flowed northward toward the equa-
tor, but whither it would go, whether it would turn one
way or another, the length of its course, where it would
come out, the character of the stream itself, and the
character of the dwellers along its banks—all these things
were yet to be discovered.

One morning while the canoes were being built Ker-
mit and I walked a few kilometres down the river and
surveyed the next rapids below. The vast still forest

was almost empty of life. We found old Indian signs.
290

Down an Unknown River 291

There were very few birds, and these in the tops of the
tall trees. We saw a recent tapir-track; and under a
cajazeira-tree by the bank there were the tracks of capy-
baras which had been eating the fallen fruit. This fruit
is delicious and would make a valuable addition to our
orchards. The tree although tropical is hardy, thrives
when. domesticated, and propagates rapidly from shoots.
The Department of Agriculture should try whether it
would not grow in southern California and Florida. This
was the tree from which the doctor’s family name was
taken. His parental grandfather, although of Portu-
guese blood, was an intensely patriotic Brazilian. He
was a very young man when the independence of Brazil
was declared, and did not wish to keep the Portuguese
family name; so he changed it to that of the fine Brazilian
tree in question. Such change of family names is common
in Brazil. Doctor Vital Brazil, the student of poisonous
serpents, was given his name by his father, whose own
family name was entirely different; and his brother’s
name was again different:

There were tremendous downpours of rain, lasting
for a couple of hours and accompanied by thunder and
lightning. But on the whole it seemed as if the rains
were less heavy and continuous than they had been. We
all of us had to help in building the canoes now and then.
Kermit, accompanied by Antonio the Parecis and Joao,
crossed the river and walked back to the little river that
had entered from the east, so as to bring back a report
of it to Colonel Rondon. Lyra .took observations, by
the sun and by the stars. We were in about latitude 11°
21’ south, and due north of where we had started. The

292 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

river had wound so that we had gone two miles for every
one we made northward. Our progress had been very
slow; and until. we got out of the region of incessant
rapids, with their attendant labor and hazard, it was not
likely that we should go much faster.

On the morning of March 22 we started in our six
canoes. We made ten kilometres. Twenty minutes
after starting we came to the first rapids. Here every
one walked except the three best paddlers, who took the
canoes down in succession—an hour’s job. Soon after
this we struck a bees’ nest in the top of a tree overhang-
ing the river; our steersman climbed out and robbed it,
but, alas! lost the honey on the way back. We came to
a small steep fall which we did not dare run in our over-
laden, clumsy, and cranky dugouts. Fortunately, we
were able to follow a deep canal which led off for a kilo-
metre, returning just below the falls, fifty yards from
where it had started. Then, having been in the boats and
in motion only one hour and a half, we came to a long
stretch of rapids which it took us six hours to descend,
and we camped at the foot. Everything was taken out
of the canoes, and they were run down in succession. At
one difficult and perilous place they were let down by
ropes; and even thus we almost lost one.

We went down the right bank. On the opposite bank
was an Indian village, evidently inhabited only during the
dry season. The marks on the stumps of trees showed
that these Indians had axes and knives; and there were
old fields in which maize, beans, and cotton had been
grown. The forest dripped and steamed. Rubber-trees
were plentiful. At one point the tops of a group of tall

Down an Unknown River 293

trees were covered with yellow-white blossoms. Others
bore red blossoms. Many of the big trees, of different
kinds, were buttressed at the base with great thin walls of
wood. Others, including both palms and ordinary trees,
showed an even stranger peculiarity. The trunk, near
the base, but sometimes six or eight feet from the ground,
was split into a dozen or twenty branches or small trunks
which sloped outward in tent-like shape, each becoming
aroot. The larger trees of this type looked as if their
trunks were seated on the tops of the pole frames of
Indian tepees. At one point in the stream, to our great
surprise, we saw a flying-fish. It skimmed the water like
a swallow for over twenty yards.

Although we made only ten kilometres we worked
hard all day. The last canoes were brought down and
moored to the bank at nightfall. Our tents were pitched
in the darkness.

Next day we made thirteen kilometres. We ran, all
told, a little over an hour and three-quarters. Seven
hours were spent in getting past a series of rapids at
which the portage, over rocky and difficult ground, was
a kilometre long. The canoes were run down empty—
a hazardous run, in which one of them upset.

Yet while we were actually on the river, paddling and
floating down-stream along the reaches of swift, smooth
water, it was very lovely. When we started in the morn-
ing the day was overcast and the air was heavy with
vapor. Ahead of us the shrouded river stretched be-
tween dim walls of forest, half-seen in the mist. Then
the sun burned up the fog, and loomed through it in a
ted splendor that changed first to gold and then to molten

294 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

white. In the dazzling light, under the brilliant blue of
the sky, every detail of the magnificent forest was vivid
to the eye: the great trees, the network of bush ropes,
the caverns of greenery, where thick-leaved vines covered
all things else. Wherever there was a hidden bowlder
the surface of the current was broken by waves. In one
place, in midstream, a pyramidal rock thrust itself six
feet above the surface of the river. On the banks we
found fresh Indian sign.

At home in Vermont Cherrie is a farmer, with a farm
of six hundred acres, most of it woodland. As we sat at
the foot of the rapids, watching for the last dugouts with
their naked paddlers to swing into sight round the bend
through the white water, we talked of the northern spring
that was just beginning. He sells cream, eggs, poultry,
potatoes, honey, occasionally pork and veal; but at this
season it was the time for the maple-sugar crop. He has
a sugar orchard, where he taps twelve hundred trees and
hopes soon to tap as many more in addition. Said Cher-
rie: “It’s a busy time now for Fred Rice”—Fred Rice is
the hired man, and in sugar time the Cherrie boys help
him with enthusiasm, and, moreover, are paid with exact
justice for the work they do. There is much wild life
about the farm, although it is near Brattleboro. One
night in early spring a bear left his tracks near the sugar-
house; and now and then in summer Cherrie has had to
sleep in the garden to keep the deer away from the beans,
cabbages, and beets.

There was not much bird life in the forest, but Cherrie
kept getting species new to the collection. At this camp
he shot an interesting little ant-thrush. It was the size

Down an Unknown River 295

of a warbler, jet-black, with white under-surfaces of the
wings and tail, white on the tail-feathers, and a large spot
of white on the back, normally almost concealed, the
feathers on the back being long and fluffy. When he
shot the bird, a male, it was showing off before a dull-
colored little bird, doubtless the female; and the chief
feature of the display was this white spot on the back.
The white feathers were raised and displayed so that
the spot flashed like the “chrysanthemum” on a prong-
buck whose curiosity has been aroused. In the gloom of
the forest the bird was hard to see, but the flashing of
this patch of white feathers revealed it at once, attract-
ing immediate attention. It was an excellent example
of a coloration mark’ which served a purely advertising
purpose; apparently it was part of a courtship display.
The bird was about thirty feet up in the branches.

In the morning, just before leaving this camp, a tapir
swam across stream a little way above us; but unfortu-
nately we could not get a shot at it. An ample supply of
tapir beef would have meant much to us. We had started
with fifty days’ rations; but this by no means meant full
rations, in the sense of giving every man all he wanted
to eat. We had two meals a day, and were on rather
short commons—both our mess and the camaradas’—
except when we got plenty of palm-tops. For our mess
we had the boxes chosen by Fiala, each containing a day’s
rations for six men, our number. But we made each box
last a day and a half, or at times two days, and in addi-
tion we gave some of the food to the camaradas. It was
only on the rare occasions when we had killed some
monkeys or curassows, or caught some fish, that every-

296 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

body had enough. We would have welcomed that tapir.
So far the game, fish, and fruit had been too scarce to
be an element of weight in our food supply. In an
exploring trip like ours, through a difficult and utterly
unknown country, especially if densely forested, there is
little time to halt, and game cannot be counted on. It is
only in lands like our own West thirty years ago, like
South Africa in the middle of the last century, like East
Africa to-day that game can be made the chief food sup-
ply. On this trip our only substantial food supply from
the country hitherto had been that furnished’ by the palm-
tops. Two men were detailed every day to cut down
palms for food.

A kilometre and a half after leaving this camp we
came on a stretch of big rapids. The river here twists
in loops, and we had heard the roaring of these rapids
the previous afternoon. Then we passed out of earshot
of them; but Antonio Correa, our best waterman, insisted
all along that the roaring meant rapids worse than any
we had encountered for some days. “I was brought up
in the water, and I know it like a fish, and all its sounds,”
said he. He was right. We had to carry the loads
nearly a kilometre that afternoon, and the canoes were
pulled out on the bank so that they might be in readiness
to be dragged overland next day. Rondon, Lyra, Ker-
mit, and Antonio Correa explored both sides of the river.
On the opposite or left bank they found the mouth of a
considerable river, bigger than the Rio Kermit, flowing in
from the west and making its entrance in the middle of
the rapids. This river we christened the Taunay, in
honor of a distinguished Brazilian, an explorer, a soldier,

Down an Unknown River 297

a senator, who was also a writer of note. Kermit had
with him two of his novels, and I had read one of his
books dealing with a disastrous retreat during the Para-
guayan war.

Next morning, the 25th, the canoes were brought
down. A path was chopped for them and rollers laid;
and half-way down the rapids Lyra and Kermit, who
were overseeing the work as well as doing their share
of the pushing and hauling, got them into a canal of
smootit water, which saved much severe labor. As our
food supply lowered we were constantly more desirous
of economizing the strength of the men. One day more
would complete a month since we had embarked on the
Duvida—as we had started in February, the lunar and
calendar months coincided. We had used up over half
our provisions. We had come only a trifle over 160 kilo-
metres, thanks to the character and number of the rapids.
We believed we had three or four times the distance yet
to go before coming to a part of the river where we
might hope to meet assistance, either from rubber-gather-
ers, or from Pyrineus, if he were really coming up the
river which we were going down. If the rapids contin-
ued to be as they had been it could not be much more
than three weeks before we were in straits for food, aside
from the ever-present danger of accident in the rapids;
and if our progress were no faster than it had been—and
we were straining to do our best—we would in such event
still have several hundreds of kilometres of unknown
river before us. We could not even hazard a guess at
what was in front. The river was now a really big river,
and it seemed impossible that it could flow either into the

298 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

Gy-Parana or the Tapajos. It was possible that it went
into the Canuma, a big affluent of the Madeira low down,
and next to the Tapajos. It was more probable that it
was the headwaters of the Aripuanan, a river which, as
I have said, was not even named on the excellent English
map of Brazil I carried. Nothing but the mouth had
been known to any geographer ; but the lower course had
long been known to rubber-gatherers, and recently a com-
mission from the government of Amazonas had part-
way ascended one branch of it—not as far as the rubber-
gatherers had gone, and, as it turned out, not the branch
we came down.

Two of our men were down with fever. Another
man, Julio, a fellow of powerful frame, was utterly
worthless, being an inborn, lazy shirk with the heart of
a ferocious cur in the body of a bullock. The others were
good men, some of them very good indeed. They were
under the immediate supervision of Pedrinho Craveiro,
who was first-class in every way.

This camp was very lovely. It was on the edge of a
bay, into which the river broadened immediately below
the rapids. There was a beach of white sand, where we
bathed and washed our clothes. All around us, and
across the bay, and on both sides of the long water-street
made by the river, rose the splendid forest. There were
flocks of parakeets colored green, blue, and red. Big
toucans called overhead, lustrous green-black in color,
with white throats, red gorgets, red-and-yellow tail co-
verts, and huge black-and-yellow bills. Here the soil was
fertile; it will be a fine site for a coffee-plantation when
this region is open to settlement. Surely such a rich and

Down an Unknown River 299

fertile land cannot be permitted to remain idle, to lie as
a tenantless wilderness, while there are such teeming
swarms of human beings in the overcrowded, overpeopled
countries of the Old World. The very rapids and water-
falls which now make the navigation of the river so diffi-
cult and dangerous would drive electric trolleys up and
down its whole length and far out on either side, and run
mills and factories, and lighten the labor on farms. With
the incoming of settlement and with the steady growth of
knowledge how to fight and control tropical diseases, fear
of danger to health would vanish. A land like this is a
hard land for the first explorers, and perhaps for their
immediate followers, but not for the people who come
after them.

In mid-afternoon we were once more in the canoes;
but we had paddled with the current only a few minutes,
we had gone only a kilometre, when the roar of rapids
in front again forced us to haul up to the bank. As
usual, Rondon, Lyra, and Kermit, with Antonio Correa,
explored both sides while camp was being pitched. The
rapids were longer and of steeper descent than the last,
but on the opposite or western side there was a passage
down which we thought we could get the empty dugouts
at the cost of dragging them only a few yards at one
spot. The loads were to be carried down the hither
bank, for a kilometre, to the smooth water. The river
foamed between great rounded masses of rock, and at
one point there was a sheer fall of six or eight feet. We
found and ate wild pineapples. Wild beans were in
flower. At dinner we had a toucan and a couple of par-
rots, which were very good.

300 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

All next day was spent by Lyra in superintending our
three best watermen as they took the canoes down the
west side of the rapids, to the foot, at the spot to which
the camp had meantime been shifted. In the forest some
of the huge sipas, or rope vines, which were as big as
cables, bore clusters of fragrant flowers. The men found
several honey-trees, and fruits of various kinds, and small
cocoanuts; they chopped down an ample number of
palms, for the palm-cabbage; and, most important of all,
they gathered a quantity of big Brazil-nuts, which when
roasted tasted like the best of chestnuts and are nutri-
tious; and they caught a number of big piranhas, which
were good eating. So we all had a feast, and everybody
had enough to eat and was happy.

By these rapids, at the fall, Cherrie found some
strange carvings on a bare mass of rock. They were
evidently made by men a long time ago. As far as is
known, the Indians thereabouts make no such figures now.
They were in two groups, one on the surface of the rock
facing the land, the other on that facing the water. The
latter were nearly obliterated. The former were in good
preservation, the figures sharply cut into the rock. They
consisted, upon the upper flat part of the rock, of four
multiple circles with a dot in the middle (@). very accu-
rately made and about a foot and a half in diameter ; and
below them, on the side of the rock, four multiple m’s
or inverted w’s (QQ). What these curious symbols rep-
resented, or who made them, we could not, of course,
form the slightest idea. It may be that in a very remote
past some Indian tribes of comparatively advanced cul-
ture had penetrated to this lovely river, just as we had

Down an Unknown River 301

now come to it. Before white men came to South Amer-
ica there had already existed therein various semiciviliza-
tions, some rude, others fairly advanced, which rose,
flourished, and persisted through immemorial ages, and
then vanished. The vicissitudes in the history of hu-
manity during its stay on this southern continent have
been as strange, varied, and inexplicable as paleontology
shows to have been the case, on the same continent, in
the history of the higher forms of animal life during the
age of mammals. Colonel Rondon stated that such fig-
ures as these are not found anywhere else in Matto
Grosso where he has been, and therefore it was all the
more strange to find them in this one place on the un-
known river, never before visited by white men, which
we were descending.

Next morning we went about three kilometers before
coming to some steep hills, beautiful to look upon, clad
as they were in dense, tall, tropical forest, but ominous
of new rapids. Sure enough, at their foot we had to
haul up and prepare for a long portage. The canoes we
ran down empty. Even so, we were within an ace of
losing two, the lashed couple in which I ordinarily jour-
neyed. Ina sharp bend of the rapids, between two big
curls, they were swept among the bowlders and under
the matted branches which stretched out from the bank.
They filled, and the racing current pinned them where
they were, one partly on the other. All of us had to help
get them clear. Their fastenings were chopped asunder
with axes. Kermit and half a dozen of the men, stripped
to the skin, made their way to a small rock island in the
little falls just above the canoes, and let down a rope

302 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

which we tied to the outermost canoe. The rest of us,
up to our armpits and barely able to keep our footing as
we slipped and stumbled among the bowlders in the swift
current, lifted and shoved while Kermit and his men
pulled the rope and fastened the slack to a half-submerged
tree. Each canoe in succession was hauled up the little
rock island, baled, and then taken down in safety by two
paddlers. It was nearly four o’clock before we were
again ready to start, having been delayed by a rain-storm
so heavy that we could not see across the river. Ten
minutes’ run took us to the head of another series of
rapids; the exploring party returned with the news that
we had an all day’s job ahead of us; and we made camp
in the rain, which did not matter much, as we were al-
ready drenched through. It was impossible, with the
wet wood, to make a fire sufficiently hot to dry all our
soggy things, for the rain was still falling. A tapir was
seen from our boat, but, as at the moment we were being
whisked round in a complete circle by a whirlpool, I did
not myself see it in time to shoot.

Next morning we went down a kilometre, and then
landed on the other side of the river. The canoes were
run down, and the loads carried to the other side of a
little river coming in from the west, which Colonel Ron-
don christened Cherrie River. Across this we went on
a bridge consisting of a huge tree felled by Macario, one
of our best men. Here we camped, while Rondon, Lyra,
Kermit, and Antonio Correa explored what was ahead.
They were absent until mid-afternoon. Then they re-
turned with the news that we were among ranges of low
mountains, utterly different in formation from the high

Down an Unknown River 303

plateau region to which the first rapids, those we had
come to on the 2d of March, belonged. Through the
first range of these mountains the river ran in a gorge,
some three kilometres long, immediately ahead of us.
The ground was so rough and steep that it would be im-
possible to drag the canoes over it and difficult enough
to carry the loads; and the rapids were so bad, containing
several falls, one of at least ten metres in height, that it
was doubtful how many of the canoes we could get down
them. Kermit, who was the only man with much experi-
ence of rope work, was the only man who believed we
could get the canoes down at all; and it was, of course,
possible that we should have to build new ones at the foot
to supply the place of any that were lost or left behind.
In view of the length and character of the portage, and
of all the unpleasant possibilities that were ahead, and
of the need of keeping every pound of food, it was neces-
sary to reduce weight in every possible way and to throw
away everything except the barest necessities.

We thought we had reduced our baggage before; but
now we cut to the bone. We kept the fly for all six of
us to sleep under. Kermit’s shoes had gone, thanks to
the amount of work in the water which he had been do-
ing; and he took the pair I had been wearing, while I put
on my spare pair. In addition to the clothes I wore, I
kept one set of pajamas, a spare pair of drawers, a spare
pair of socks, half a dozen handkerchiefs, my wash-kit,
my pocket medicine-case, and a little bag containing my
spare spectacles, gun-grease, some adhesive plaster, some
needles and thread, the “fly-dope,” and my purse and
letter of credit, to be used at Manaos. All of these went

304 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

into the bag containing my cot, blanket, and mosquito-
net. I also carried a cartridge-bag containing my cart-
ridges, head-net, and gauntlets. Kermit cut down even
closer; and the others about as close.

The last three days of March we spent in getting to
the foot of the rapids in this gorge. Lyra and Kermit,
with four of the best watermen, handled the empty
canoes. The work was not only difficult and laborious
in the extreme, but hazardous; for the walls of the gorge
were so sheer that at the worst places they had to cling
to narrow shelves on the face of the rock, while letting
the canoes down with ropes. Meanwhile Rondon sur-
veyed and cut a trail for the burden-bearers, and super-
intended the portage of the loads. The rocky sides of
the gorge were too steep for laden men to attempt to
traverse them. Accordingly the trail had to go over the
top of the mountain, both the ascent and the descent of
the rock-strewn, forest-clad slopes being very steep. It
was hard work to carry loads over such a trail. From
the top of the mountain, through an opening in the trees
on the edge of a cliff, there was a beautiful view of the
country ahead. All around and in front of us there were
ranges of low mountains about the height of the lower
ridges of the Alleghanies. Their sides were steep and
they were covered with the matted growth of the tropical
forest. Our next camping-place, at the foot of the gorge,
was almost beneath us, and from thence the river ran in
a straight line, flecked with white water, for about a
kilometre. Then it disappeared behind and between
mountain ridges, which we supposed meant further
rapids. It was a view well worth seeing; but, beautiful

Down an Unknown River 305

although the country ahead of us was, its character was
such as to promise further hardships, difficulty, and ex-
hausting labor, and especially further delay; and delay
was a serious matter to men whose food supply was be-
ginning to run short, whose equipment was reduced to the
minimum, who for a month, with the utmost toil, had
made very slow progress, and who had no idea of either
the distance or the difficulties of the route in front of
them.

There was not much life in the woods, big or little.
Small birds were rare, although Cherrie’s unwearied
efforts were rewarded from time to time by a species new
to the collection. There were tracks of tapir, deer, and
agouti; and if we had taken two or three days to devote
to nothing else than hunting them we might perchance
have killed something; but the chance was much too un-
certain, the work we were doing was too hard and wear-
ing, and the need of pressing forward altogether too great
to permit us to spend any time in such manner. The
hunting had to come in incidentally. This type of well-
nigh impenetrable forest is the one in which it is most
difficult to get even what little game exists therein. A
couple of curassows and a big monkey were killed by the
colonel and Kermit. On the day the monkey was brought
in Lyra, Kermit, and their four associates had spent from
sunrise to sunset in severe and at moments dangerous toil
among the rocks and in the swift water, and the fresh
meat was appreciated. The head, feet, tail, skin, and en-
trails were boiled for the gaunt and ravenous dogs. The
flesh gave each of us a few mouthfuls; and how good
those mouthfuls tasted!

306 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

Cherrie, in addition to being out after birds in every
spare moment, helped in all emergencies. He was a vet-
eran in the work of the tropic wilderness. We talked
together often, and of many things, for our views of life,
and of a man’s duty to his wife and children, to other
men, and to women, and to the state in peace and war,
were in all essentials the same. His father had served
all through the Civil War, entering an Iowa cavalry
regiment as a private and coming out as a captain; his
breast-bone was shattered by a blow from a musket-butt,
in hand-to-hand fighting at Shiloh.

During this portage the weather favored us. We
were coming toward the close of the rainy season. On
the last day of the month, when we moved camp to the
foot of the gorge, there was a thunder-storm; but on the
whole we were not bothered by rain until the last night,
when it rained heavily, driving under the fly so as to wet
my cot and bedding. However, I slept comfortably
enough, rolled in the damp blanket. Without the blanket
I should have been uncomfortable; a blanket is a neces-.
sity for health. On the third day Lyra and Kermit,
with their daring and hard-working watermen, after
wearing labor, succeeded in getting five canoes through
the worst of the rapids to the chief fall. The sixth,
which was frail and weak, had its bottom beaten out on
the jagged rocks of the broken water. On this night,
although I thought I had put my clothes out of reach,
both the termites and the carregadores ants got at them,
ate holes in one boot, ate one leg of my drawers, and
riddled my handkerchief; and I now had nothing to re-
place anything that was destroyed.

Down an Unknown River 307

Next day Lyra, Kermit, and their camaradas brought
the five canoes that were left down to camp. They had
in four days accomplished a work of incredible labor and
of the utmost importance; for at the first glance it had
seemed an absolute impossibility to avoid abandoning the
canoes when we found that the river sank into a cataract-
broken torrent at the bottom of a canyon-like gorge
between steep mountains. On April 2 we once more
started, wondering how soon we should strike other rap-
ids in the mountains ahead, and whether in any reason-
able time we should, as the aneroid indicated, be so low
down that we should necessarily be in a plain where we
could make a journey of at least a few days without
rapids. We had been exactly a month going through
an uninterrupted succession of rapids. During that
month we had come only about 110 kilometres, and had
descended nearly 150 metres—the figures are approxi-
mate but fairly accurate.* We had lost four of the
canoes with which we started, and one other, which we
had built, and the life of one man; and the life of a dog
which by its death had in all probability saved the life of
Colonel Rondon. In a straight line northward, toward
our supposed destination, we had not made more than a
mile and a quarter a day; at the cost of bitter toil for
most of the party, of much risk for some of the party,
and of some risk and some hardship for all the party.
Most of the camaradas were downhearted, naturally
enough, and occasionally asked one of us if we really be-

*The first four days, before we struck the upper rapids, and

during which we made nearly seventy kilometres, are of course not
included when I speak of our making our way down the rapids.

308 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

lieved that we should ever get out alive; and we had to
cheer them up as best we could.

There was no change in our work for the time being.
We made but three kilometres that day. Most of the
party walked all the time; but the dugouts carried the
luggage until we struck the head of the series of rapids
which were to take up the next two or three days. The
river rushed through a wild gorge, a chasm or canyon,
between two mountains. Its sides were very steep, mere
rock walls, although in most places so covered with the
luxuriant growth of the trees and bushes that clung in
the crevices, and with green moss, that the naked rock
was hardly seen. Rondon, Lyra, and Kermit, who were
in front, found a small level spot, with a beach of sand,
and sent back word to camp there, while they spent sev-
eral hours in exploring the country ahead. The canoes
were run down empty, and the loads carried painfully
along the face of the cliffs; so bad was the trail that I
found it rather hard to follow, although carrying nothing
but my rifle and cartridge-bag. The explorers returned
with the information that the mountains stretched ahead
of us, and that there were rapids as far as they had gone.
We could only hope that the aneroid was not hopelessly
out of kilter, and that we should, therefore, fairly soon
find ourselves in comparatively level country. The
severe toil, on a rather limited food supply, was telling
on the strength as well as on the spirits of the men;
Lyra and Kermit, in addition to their other work, per-
formed as much actual physical labor as any of them.

Next day, the 3d of April, we began the descent of
these sinister rapids of the chasm. Colonel Rondon had

Down an Unknown River 309

gone to the summit of the mountain in order to find a
better trail for the burden-bearers, but it was hopeless,
and they had to go along the face of the cliffs. Such
an exploring expedition as that in which we were en-
gaged of necessity involves hard and dangerous labor, and
perils of many kinds. To follow down-stream an un-
known river, broken by innumerable cataracts and rapids,
rushing through mountains of which the existence has
never been even guessed, bears no resemblance whatever
to following even a fairly dangerous river which has
been thoroughly explored and has become in some sort
a highway, so that experienced pilots can be secured as
guides, while the portages have been pioneered and trails
chopped out, and every dangerous feature of the rapids
is known beforehand. In this case no one could foretell
that the river would cleave its way through steep moun-
tain chains, cutting narrow clefts in which the cliff walls
rose almost sheer on either hand. When a rushing river
thus “canyons,” as we used to say out West, and the
mountains are very steep, it becomes almost impossible
to bring the canoes down the river itself and utterly im-
possible to portage them along the cliff sides, while even
to bring the loads over the mountain is a task of extraor-
dinary labor and difficulty. Moreover, no one can tell
how many times the task will have to be repeated, or when
it will end, or whether the food will hold out; every hour
of work in the rapids is fraught with the possibility of
the gravest disaster, and yet it is imperatively necessary
to attempt it; and all this is done in an uninhabited wil-
derness, or else a wilderness tenanted only by unfriendly
savages, where failure to get through means death by

310 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

disease and starvation. Wholesale disasters to South
American exploring parties have been frequent. The
first recent effort to descend one of the unknown rivers
to the Amazon from the Brazilian highlands resulted in
such a disaster. It was undertaken in 1889 by a party
about as large as ours under a Brazilian engineer officer,
Colonel Telles Peres. In descending some rapids they
lost everything—canoes, food, medicine, implements—
everything. Fever smote them, and then starvation. All
of them died except one officer and two men, who were
rescued months later. Recently, in Guiana, a wilder-
ness veteran, André, lost two-thirds of his party by star-
vation. Genuine wilderness exploration is as dangerous
as warfare. The conquest of wild nature demands the
utmost vigor, hardihood, and daring, and takes from the
conquerors a heavy toll of life and health.

Lyra, Kermit, and Cherrie, with four of the men,
worked the canoes half-way down the canyon. Again
and again it was touch and go whether they could get by
a given point. At one spot the channel of the furious
torrent was only fifteen yards across. One canoe was
lost, so that of the seven with which we had started only
two were left. Cherrie labored with the other men at
times, and also stood as guard over them, for, while actu-
ally working, of course no one could carry a rifle. Ker-
mit’s experience in bridge building was invaluable in
enabling him to do the rope work by which alone it was
possible to get the canoes down the canyon. He and
Lyra had now been in the water for days. Their clothes
were never dry. Their shoes were rotten. The bruises
on their feet and legs had become sores. On their bodies

Down an Unknown River 311

some of the insect bites had become festering wounds, as
indeed was the case with all of us. Poisonous ants,
biting flies, ticks, wasps, bees were a perpetual torment.
However, no one had yet been bitten by a venomous ser-
pent, a scorpion, or a centiped, although we had killed all
of the three within camp limits.

Under such conditions whatever is evil in men’s natures
comes to the front. On this day a strange and terrible
tragedy occurred. One of the camaradas, a man of pure
European blood, was the man named Julio, of whom I
have already spoken. He was a very powerful fellow
and had been importunately eager to come on the expedi-
tion; and he had the reputation of being a good worker.
But, like so many men of higher standing, he had had no
idea of what such an expedition really meant, and under
the strain of toil, hardship, and danger his nature showed
its true depths of selfishness, cowardice, and ferocity.
He shirktd all work. He shammed sickness. Nothing
could make him do his share; and yet unlike his self-
respecting fellows he was always shamelessly begging for
favors. Kermit was the only one of our party who
smoked; and he was continually giving a little tobacco
to some of the camaradas, who worked especially well
under him. The good men did not ask for it; but Julio,
who shirked every labor, was always, and always in vain,
demanding it. Colonel Rondon, Lyra, and Kermit each
tried to get work out of him, and in order to do anything
with him had to threaten to leave him in the wilderness.
He threw all his tasks on his comrades; and, moreover,
he stole their food as well as ours. On such an expedi-
tion the theft of food comes next to murder as a crime,

312 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

and should by rights be punished as such. We could not
trust him to cut down palms or gather nuts, because he
would stay out and eat what ought to have gone into the
common store. Finally, the men on several occasions
themselves detected him stealing their food. Alone of
the whole party, and thanks to the stolen food. he had
kept in full flesh and bodily vigor.

One of our best men was a huge negro named Paixao
—Paishon—a corporal and acting sergeant in the engi-
neer corps. He had, by the way, literally torn his trou-
sers to pieces, so that he wore only the tatters of a pair of
old drawers until I gave him my spare trousers when we
lightened loads. He was a stern disciplinarian. One
evening he detected Julio stealing food and smashed him
in the mouth. Julio came crying to us, his face working
with fear and malignant hatred; but after investigation
he was told that he had gotten off uncommonly lightly.
The men had three or four carbines, which were some-
times carried by those who were not their owners.

On this morning, at the outset of the portage, Pedrin-
ho discovered Julio stealing some of the men’s dried meat.
Shortly afterward Paishon rebuked him for, as usual,
lagging behind. By this time we had reached the place
where the canoes were tied to the bank and then taken
down one atatime. We were sitting down, waiting for
the last loads to be brought along the trail. Pedrinho was
still in the camp we had left. Paishon had just brought
in a load, left it on the ground with his carbine beside it,
and returned on the trail for another load. Julio came
in, put down his load, picked up the carbine, and walked
back on the trail, muttering to himself but showing no

Down an Unknown River 313

excitement. We thought nothing of it, for he was al-
ways muttering; and occasionally one of the men saw a
monkey or big bird and tried to shoot it, so it was never
surprising to see a man with a carbine.

In a minute we heard a shot; and in a short time three
or four of the men came up the trail to tell us that Paishon
was dead, having been shot by Julio, who had fled into
the woods. Colonel Rondon and Lyra were ahead; I
sent a messenger for them, directed Cherrie and Kermit
to stay where they were and guard the canoes and pro-
visions, and started down the trail with the doctor—an
absolutely cool and plucky man, with a revolver but no
rifle—and a couple of the camaradas. We soon passed
the dead body of poor Paishon. He lay in a huddle, in
a pool of his own blood, where he had fallen, shot through
the heart. I feared that Julio had run amuck, and intend-
ed merely to take more lives before he died, and that he
would begin with Pedrinho, who was alone and unarmed
in the camp we had left. Accordingly I pushed on, fol-
lowed by my companions, looking sharply right and left;
but when we came to the camp the doctor quietly walked
by me, remarking, “My eyes are better than yours,
colonel; if he is in sight I'll point him out to you, as
you have the rifle.’ However, he was not there, and
the others soon joined us with the welcome news that
they had found the carbine.

The murderer had stood to one side of the path and
killed his victim, when a dozen paces off, with deliberate
and malignant purpose. Then evidently his murderous
hatred had at once given way to his innate cowardice;
and, perhaps hearing some one coming along the path,

314 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

he fled in panic terror into the wilderness. A tree had
knocked the carbine from his hand. His footsteps
showed that after going some rods he had started to
return, doubtless for the carbine, but had fled again,
probably because the body had then been discovered. It
was questionable whether or not he would live to reach
the Indian villages, which were probably his goal. He
was not a man to feel remorse—never a common feeling;
but surely that murderer was in a living hell, as, with
fever and famine leering at him from the shadows, he
made his way through the empty desolation of the wilder-
ness. Franga, the cook, quoted out of the melancholy
proverbial philosophy of the people the proverb: “No
man knows the heart of any one”; and then expressed
with deep conviction a weird ghostly belief I had never
encountered before: “Paishon is following Julio now,
and will follow him until he dies; Paishon fell forward
on his hands and knees, and when a murdered man falls
like that his ghost will follow the slayer as long as the
slayer lives.”

We did not attempt to pursue the murderer. We
could not legally put him to death, although he was a
soldier who in cold blood had just deliberately killed a
fellow soldier. If we had been near civilization we would
have done our best to bring him in and turn him over to
justice. But we were in the wilderness, and how many
weeks’ journey were ahead of us we could not teil. Our
food was running low, sickness was beginning to appear
among the men, and both their courage and their strength
were gradually ebbing. Our first duty was to save the
lives and the health of the men of the expedition who had

Down an Unknown River 315

honestly been performing, and had still to perform, so
much perilous labor. If we brought the murderer in he
would have to be guarded night and day on an expedition
where there were always loaded firearms about, and
where there would continually be opportunity and temp-
tation for him to make an effort to seize food and a
weapon and escape, perhaps murdering some other good
man. He could not be shackled while climbing along the
cliff slopes ; he could not be shackled in the canoes, where
there was always chance of upset and drowning; and
standing guard would be an additional and severe penalty
on the weary, honest men already exhausted by over-
work. The expedition was in peril, and it was wise to
take every chance possible that would help secure success.
Whether the murderer lived or died in the wilderness
was of no moment compared with the duty of doing
everything to secure the safety of the rest of the party.
For the two days following we were always on the watch
against his return, for he could have readily killed some
one else by rolling rocks down on any of the men work-
ing on the cliff sides or in the bottom of the gorge. But
we did not see him until the morning of the third day.
We had passed the last of the rapids of the chasm, and
the four boats were going down-stream when he appeared
behind some trees on the bank and called out that he
wished to surrender and be taken aboard; for the mur-
derer was an arrant craven at heart, a strange mixture
of ferocity and cowardice. Colonel Rondon’s boat was
far in advance; he did not stop nor answer. I kept on
in similar fashion with the rear boats, for I had no in-
tention of taking the murderer aboard, to the jeopardy

316 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

of the other members of the party, unless Colonel Ron-
don told me that it would have to be done in pursuance
of his duty as an officer of the army and a servant of the
Government of Brazil. At the first halt Colonel Rondon
came up to me and told me that this was his view of his
duty, but that he had not stopped because he wished
first to consult me as the chief of the expedition. I
answered that for the reasons enumerated above I did
not believe that in justice to the good men of the ex-
pedition we should jeopardize their safety by taking
the murderer along, and that if the responsibility were
mine I should refuse to take him; but that he, Colonel
Rondon, was the superior officer of both the murderer
and of all the other enlisted men and army officers on the
expedition, and in return was responsible for his actions
to his own governmental superiors and to the laws of
Brazil; and that in view of this responsibility he must act
as his sense of duty bade him. Accordingly, at the next
camp he sent back two men, expert woodsmen, to find the
murderer and bring him in. They failed to find him.*

I have anticipated my narrative because I do not wish
to recur to the horror more than is necessary. I now re-
turn to my story. After we found that Julio had fled, we
returned to the scene of the tragedy. The murdered man
lay with a handkerchief thrown over his face. We buried
him beside the place where he fell. With axes and knives
the camaradas dug a shallow grave while we stood by
with bared heads. Then reverently and carefully we

* The above account of all the circumstances connected with the

murder was read to and approved as correct by all six members
of the expedition.

Down an Unknown River 317

lifted the poor body which but half an hour before had
been so full of vigorous life. Colonel Rondon and I bore
the head and shoulders. We laid him in the grave, and
heaped a mound over him, and put a rude cross at his
head. We fired a volley for a brave and loyal soldier
who had died doing his duty. Then we left him forever,
under the great trees beside the lonely river.

That day we got only half-way down the rapids.
There was no good place to camp. But at the foot of one
steep cliff there was a narrow, bowlder-covered slope
where it was possible to sling hammocks and cook; and a
slanting spot was found for my cot, which had sagged
until by this-time it looked like a broken-backed centiped..
It rained a little during the night, but not enough to wet
us much. Next day Lyra, Kermit, and Cherrie finished
their job, and brought the four remaining canoes to camp,
one leaking badly from the battering on the rocks. We
then went down-stream a few hundred yards, and camped
on the opposite side; it was not a good camping-place, but
it was better than the one we left.

The men were growing constantly weaker under the
endless strain of exhausting labor. Kermit was having
an attack of fever, and Lyra and Cherrie had touches of
dysentery, but all three continued to work. While in the
water trying to help with an upset canoe I had by my own
clumsiness bruised my leg against a bowlder; and the re-
sulting inflammation was somewhat bothersome. I now
had a sharp attack of fever, but thanks to the excellent
care of the doctor, was over it in about forty-eight hours;
but Kermit’s fever grew worse and he too was unable to
work for a day or two. We could walk over the port-

318 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

ages, however. A good doctor is an absolute necessity
on an exploring expedition in such a country as that we
were in, under penalty of a frightful mortality among
the members; and the necessary risks and hazards are so
great, the chances of disaster so large, that there is no
warrant for increasing them by the failure to take all
feasible precautions.

The next day we made another long portage round
some rapids, and camped at night still in the hot, wet, sun-
less atmosphere of the gorge. The following day, April
6, we portaged past another set of rapids, which proved
to be the last of the rapids of the chasm. For some kilo-
metres we kept passing hills, and feared lest at any mo-
ment we might again find ourselves fronting another
mountain gorge; with, in such case, further days of
grinding and perilous labor ahead of us, while our men
were disheartened, weak, and sick. Most of them had
already begun to have fever. Their condition was in-
evitable after over a month’s uninterrupted work of the
hardest kind in getting through the long series of rapids
we had just passed; and a long further delay, accompa-
nied by wearing labor, would have almost certainly meant
that the weakest among our party would have begun to
die. There were already two of the camaradas who
were too weak to help the others, their condition being
such as to cause us serious concern. .

However, the hills gradually sank into a level plain,
and the river carried us through it at a rate that enabled
us during the remainder of the day to reel off thirty-six
kilometres, a record that for the first time held out prom-
ise. Twice tapirs swam the river while we passed, but

Down an Unknown River 319

not near my canoe. However, the previous evening
Cherrie had killed two monkeys and Kermit one, and we
all had a few mouthfuls of fresh meat; we had already
had a good soup made out of a turtle Kermit had caught.
We had to portage by one short set of rapids, the un-
loaded canoes being brought down without difficulty.
At last, at four in the afternoon, we came to the mouth
of a big river running in from the right. We thought it
was probably the Ananas, but, of course, could not be
certain. It was less in volume than the one we had de-
scended, but nearly as broad; its breadth at this point
being ninety-five yards as against one hundred and twenty
for the larger river. There were rapids ahead, immedi-
ately after the junction, which took place in latitude 10°
58’ south. We had come 216 kilometres all told, and were
nearly north of where we had started. We camped on
the point of land between the two rivers. It was extraor-
dinary to realize that here about the eleventh degree we
were on such a big river, utterly unknown to the cartog-
raphers and not indicated by even a hint on any map.
We named this big tributary Rio Cardozo, after a gallant
officer of the commission who had died of beriberi just
as our expedition began. We spent a day at this spot,
determining our exact position by the sun, and afterward
by the stars, and sending on two men to explore the rapids
inadvance. They returned with the news that there were
big cataracts in them, and that they would form an ob-
stacle to our progress. They had also caught a huge
siluroid fish, which furnished an excellent meal for every-
body in camp. This evening at sunset the view across
the broad river, from our camp where the two rivers

320 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

joined, was very lovely; and for the first time we had an
open space in front of and above us, so that after nightfall
the stars, and the great waxing moon, were glorious over-
head, and against the rocks in midstream the broken water
gleamed like tossing silver.

The huge catfish which the men had caught was over
three feet and a half long, with the usual enormous head,
out of all proportions to the body, and the enormous
mouth, out of all proportion to the head. Such fish, al-
though their teeth are small, swallow very large prey.
This one contained the nearly digested remains of a mon-
key. Probably the monkey had been seized while drink-
ing from the end of a branch; and once engulfed in that
yawning cavern there was no escape. We Americans
were astounded at the idea of a catfish making prey of a
monkey; but our Brazilian friends told us that in the
lower Madeira and the part of the Amazon near its mouth
there is a still more gigantic catfish which in similar fash-
ion occasionally makes prey of man. This is a grayish-
white fish over nine feet long, with the usual dispropor-
tionately large head and gaping mouth, with a circle of
small teeth; for the engulfing mouth itself is the danger,
not the teeth. It is called the piraiba—pronounced in
four syllables. While stationed at the small city of Itacoa-
tiara, on the Amazon, at the mouth of the Madeira, the
doctor had seen one of these monsters which had been
killed by the two men it had attacked. They were fishing
in a canoe when it rose from the bottom—for it is a
ground fish—and raising itself half out of the water
lunged over the edge of the canoe at them, with open
mouth. They killed it with their falcéns, as machetes are

Down an Unknown River 321

called in Brazil. It was taken round the city in triumph
in an ox-cart; the doctor saw it, and said it was three
metreslong. He said that swimmers feared it even more
than the big cayman, because they could see the latter,
whereas the former lay hid at the bottom of the water.
Colonel Rondon said that in many villages where he had
been on the lower Madeira the people had built stockaded
enclosures in the water in which they bathed, not ventur-
ing to swim in the open water for fear of the piraiba and
the big cayman.

Next day, April 8, we made five kilometres only, as
there was a succession of rapids. We had to carry the
loads past two of them, but ran the canoes without diffi-
culty, for on the west side were long canals of swift water
through the forest. The river had been higher, but was
still very high, and the current raced round the many
islands that at this point divided the channel. At four
we made camp at the head of another stretch of rapids,
over which the Canadian canoes would have danced with-
out shipping a teaspoonful of water, but which our dug-
outs could only run empty. Cherrie killed three monkeys
and Lyra caught two big piranhas, so that we were again
all of us well provided with dinner and breakfast. When
a number of men, doing hard work, are most of the time
on half-rations, they grow to take a lively interest in any
reasonably full meal that, does arrive.

On the 10th we repeated the proceedings: a short
quick run; a few hundred metres’ portage, occupying,
however, at least a couple of hours; again a few minutes’
run; again other rapids. ;We again made less than five
kilometres; in the two days we had been descending

322 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

nearly a metre for every kilometre we made in advance;
and it hardly seemed as if this state of things could last,
for the aneroid showed that we were getting very low
down. How I longed for a big Maine birch-bark, such
as that in which I once went down the Mattawamkeag at
high water! It would have slipped down these rapids as
a girl trips through a country dance. But our loaded
dugouts would have shoved their noses under every curl.
The country was lovely. The wide river, now in one
channel, now in several channels, wound among hills; the
shower-freshened forest glistened in the sunlight; the
many kinds of beautiful palm-fronds and the huge paco-
va-leaves stamped the peculiar look of the tropics on the
whole landscape—it was like passing by water through a
gigantic botanical garden. In the afternoon we got an
elderly toucan, a piranha, and a reasonably edible side-
necked river-turtle; so we had fresh meat again. We
slept as usual in earshot of rapids. We had been out six
weeks, and almost all the time we had been engaged in
wearily working our own way down and past rapid after
rapid. Rapids are by far the most dangerous enemies of
explorers and travellers who journey along these rivers.

Next day was a repetition of the same work. All the
morning was spent in getting the loads to the foot of the
rapids at the head of which we were encamped, down
which the canoes were run empty. Then for thirty or
forty minutes we ran down the swift, twisting river, the
two lashed canoes almost coniing to grief at one spot
where a swirl of the current threw them against some
trees on a small submerged islaad. Then we came to an-
other set of rapids, carried the baggage down past them,

Down an Unknown River 323

and made camp long after dark in the rain—a good ex-
ercise in patience for those of us who were still suffer-
ing somewhat from fever. No one was in really buoyant
health. For some weeks we had been sharing part of the
contents of our boxes with the camaradas; but our food
was not very satisfying to them. They needed quantity
and the mainstay of each of their meals was a mass of
palmitas; but on this day they had no time to cut down
palms. We finally decided to run these rapids with the
empty canoes, and they came down in safety. On such
a trip it is highly undesirable to take any save necessary
risks, for the consequences of disaster are too serious;
and yet if no risks are taken the progress is so slow that
disaster comes anyhow; and it. is necessary perpetually
to vary the terms of the perpetual working compromise
between rashness and overcaution. This night we had
avery good fish to eat, a big silvery fellow called a pes-
cada, of a kind we had not caught before.

One day Trigueiro failed to embark with the rest of
us, and we had to camp where we were next day to find
him. Easter Sunday we spent in the fashion with which
we were altogether too familiar. We only ran in a clear
course for ten minutes all told, and spent eight hours in
portaging the loads past rapids down which the canoes
were run; the balsa was almost swamped. This day we
caught twenty-eight big fish, mostly piranhas, and every-
body had all he could eat for dinner, and for breakfast
the following morning.

The forenoon of the following day was a repetition of
this wearisome work; but late in the afternoon the river
began to run in long quiet reaches. We made fifteen kil-

324 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

ometres, and for the first time in several weeks camped
where we did not hear the rapids. The silence was sooth-
ing and restful. The following day, April 14, we made
a good run of some thirty-two kilometres. We passed a
little river which entered on our left. We ran two or
three light rapids, and portaged the loads by another.
The river ran in long and usually tranquil stretches,
In the morning when we started the view was lovely.
There was a mist, and for a couple of miles the great
river, broad and quiet, ran between the high walls of
tropical forest, the tops of the giant trees showing dim
through the haze. Different members of the party caught
many fish, and shot a monkey and a couple of jacu-tinga
—thirds kin to a turkey, but the size of a fowl—so we
again had a camp of plenty. The dry season was ap-
proaching, but there were still heavy, drenching rains.
On this day the men found some new nuts of which they
liked the taste; but the nuts proved unwholesome and
half of the men were very sick and unable to work the
following day. In the balsa only two were left fit to do
anything, and Kermit plied a paddle all day long.
Accordingly, it was a rather sorry crew that embarked
the following morning, April 15. But it turned out a
red-letter day. The day before, we had come across
cuttings, a year old, which were probably but not cer-
tainly made by pioneer rubber-men. But on this day—
during which we made twenty-five kilometres—after
running two hours and a half we found on the left bank
a board on a post, with the initials J. A., to show the
farthest-up point which a rubber-man had reached and
claimed as his own. An hour farther down we came on

Down an Unknown River 325

a newly built house in a little planted clearing; and we
cheered heartily. No one was at home, but the house,
of palm thatch, was clean and cool. A couple of dogs
were on watch, and the belongings showed that a man, a
woman, and a child lived there, and had only just left.
Another hour brought us to a similar house where dwelt
an old black man, who showed the innate courtesy of the
Brazilian peasant. We came on these rubber-men and
their houses in about latitude 10° 24’.

In mid-afternoon we stopped at another clean, cool,
picturesque house of palm thatch. The inhabitants all
fled at our approach, fearing an Indian raid; for they
were absolutely unprepared to have any one come from
the unknown regions up-stream. They returned and
were most hospitable and communicative; and we spent
the night there. Said Antonio Correa to Kermit: “It
seems like a dream to be in a house again, and hear the
voices of men and women, instead of being among those
mountains and rapids.” The river was known to them
as the Castanho, and was the main affluent or rather the
left or western branch, of the Aripuanan; the Castanho
is a name used by the rubber-gatherers only; it is un-
known to the geographers. We were, according to our
informants, about fifteen days’ journey from the conflu-
ence of the two rivers; but there were many rubber-men
along the banks, some of whom had become permanent
settlers. We had come over three hundred kilometres,
in forty-eight days, over absolutely unknown ground; we
had seen no human being, although we had twice heard
Indians. Six weeks had been spent in steadily slogging
our way down through the interminable series of rapids.

326 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

It was astonishing before, when we were on a river of
about the size of the upper Rhine or Elbe, to realize that
no geographer had any idea of its existence. But, after
all, no civilized man of any grade had ever been on it.
Here, however, was a river with people dwelling along
the banks, some of whom had lived in the neighborhood
for eight or ten years; and yet on no standard map was
there a hint of the river’s existence. We were putting on
the map a river, running through between five and six
degrees of latitude—of between seven and eight if, as
should properly be done, the lower Aripuanan is included
as part of it—of which no geographer, in any map
published in Europe, or the United States, or Brazil had
even admitted the possibility of the existence; for the
place actually occupied by it was filled, on the maps, by
other — imaginary — streams, or by mountain ranges.
Before we started, the Amazonas Boundary Commis-
sion had come up the lower Aripuanan and then the
eastern branch, or upper Aripuanan, to 8° 48’, follow-
ing the course which for a couple of decades had
been followed by the rubber-men, but not going as
high. An employee, either of this commission or of
one of the big rubber-men, had been up the Castanho,
which is easy of ascent in its lower course, to
about the same latitude, not going nearly as high as
the rubber-men had gone; this we found out while we
ourselves were descending the lower Castanho. The
lower main stream, and the lower portion of its main
affluent, the Castanho, had been commercial highways for
rubber-men and settlers for nearly two decades, and, as
we speedily found, were as easy to traverse as the upper

Down an Unknown River 327

stream, which we had just come down, was difficult to
traverse; but the governmental and scientific authorities,
native and foreign, remained in complete ignorance; and
the rubber-men themselves had not the slightest idea of
the headwaters, which were in country never hitherto
traversed by civilized men. Evidently the Castanho was,
in length at least, substantially equal, and probably supe-
rior, to the upper Aripuanan; it now seemed even more
likely that the Ananas was the headwaters of the main
stream than of the Cardozo.* For the first time this
great river, the greatest affluent of the Madiera, was to be
put on the map; and the understanding of its real position
and real relationship, and the clearing up of the complex
problem of the sources of all these lower right-hand afflu-
ents of the Madiera, was rendered possible by the seven
weeks of hard and dangerous labor we had spent in going
down an absolutely unknown river, through an absolutely
unknown wilderness. At this stage of the growth of
world geography I esteemed it a great piece of good
fortune to be able to take part in such a feat—a feat
which represented the capping of the pyramid which dur-
ing the previous seven years had been built by the labor
of the Brazilian Telegraphic Commission.

We had passed the period when there was a chance of
peril, of disaster, to the whole expedition. There might
be risk ahead to individuals, and some difficulties and

*T hope that this year the Anands, or Pineapple, will also be put
on the map. One of Colonel Rondon’s subordinates is to attempt
the descent of the river. We passed the headwaters of the Pine-
apple on the high plateau, very possibly we passed its mouth, al-
though it is also possible that it empties into the Canama or Tapa-

jos. But it will not be “put on the map” until some one descends
and finds out where, as a matter of fact, it really does go.

328 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

annoyances for all of us; but there was no longer the
least likelihood of any disaster to the expedition as a
whole. We now no longer had to face continual anxiety,
the need of constant economy with food, the duty of
labor with no end in sight, and bitter uncertainty as to
the future.

It was time to get out. The wearing work, under
very unhealthy conditions, was beginning to tell on every
one. Half of the camaradas had been down with fever
and were much weakened; only a few of them retained
their original physical and moral strength. Cherrie and
Kermit had recovered; but both Kermit and Lyra still
had bad sores on their legs, from the bruises received in
the water work. Iwas in worse shape. The after effects
of the fever still hung on; and the leg which had been hurt
while working in the rapids with the sunken canoe had
taken a turn for the bad and developed an abscess. The
good doctor, to whose unwearied care and kindness I
owe much, had cut it open and inserted a drainage tube;
an added charm being given the operation, and the sub-
sequent dressings, by the enthusiasm with which the
piums and boroshudas took part therein. I could hardly
hobble, and was pretty well laid up. But “there aren’t no
‘stop, conductor,’ while a battery’s changing ground.”
No man has any business to go on such a trip as ours un-
less he will refuse to jeopardize the welfare of his asso-
ciates by any delay caused by a weakness or ailment of
his. It is his duty to go forward, if necessary on all
fours, until he drops. Fortunately, I was put to no such
test. I remained in good shape until we had passed the
last of the rapids of the chasms. When my serious

Down an Unknown River 329

trouble came we had only canoe-riding ahead of us. It
is not ideal for a sick man to spend the hottest hours of
the day stretched on the boxes in the bottom of a small
open dugout, under the well-nigh intolerable heat of the
torrid sun of the mid-tropics, varied by blinding, drench-
ing downpours of rain; but I could not be sufficiently
grateful for the chance. Kermit and Cherrie took care
of me as if they had been trained nurses; and Colonel
Rondon and Lyra were no less thoughtful.

The north was calling strongly to the three men of
the north—Rocky Dell Farm to Cherrie, Sagamore Hill
to me; and to Kermit the call was stronger still. After
nightfall we could now see the Dipper well above the hor-
izon—upside down, with the two pointers pointing to a
north star below the world’s rim; but the Dipper, with
all its stars. In our home country spring had now come,
the wonderful northern spring of long glorious days, of
brooding twilights, of cool delightful nights. Robin and
bluebird, meadow-lark and song sparrow, were singing
in the mornings at home; the maple-buds were red; wind-
flowers and bloodroot were blooming while the last
patches of snow still lingered; the rapture of the hermit-
thrush in Vermont, the serene golden melody of the
wood-thrush on Long Island, would be heard before we
were there to listen. Each man to his home, and to his
true love! Each was longing for the homely things that
were so dear to him, for the home people who were
dearer still, and for the one who was dearest of all.

CHAPTER X

TO THE AMAZON AND HOME; ZOOLOGICAL
AND GEOGRAPHICAL RESULTS OF
THE EXPEDITION

UR adventures and our troubles were alike over.
We now experienced the incalculable contrast
between descending a known and travelled river,
and one that is utterly unknown. After four days we
hired a rubber-man to go with us as guide. We knew
exactly what channels were passable when we came to
the rapids, when the canoes had to unload, and where the
carry-trails were. It was all child’s play compared to
what we had gone through. We made long days’ jour-
neys, for at night we stopped at some palm-thatched
house, inhabited or abandoned, and therefore the men
were spared the labor of making camp; and we bought
ample food for them, so there was no further need of
fishing and chopping down palms for the palm-tops. The
heat of the sun was blazing; but it looked as if we had
come back into the rainy season, for there were many
heavy rains, usually in the afternoon, but sometimes in
the morning or at night. The mosquitoes were some-
times rather troublesome at night. In the daytime the
piums swarmed, and often bothered us even when we
were in midstream.

To the Amazon and Home 331

For four days there were no rapids we could not run
without unloading. Then, on the 19th, we got a canoe
from Senhor Barboso. He was a most kind and hos-
pitable man, who also gave us a duck and a chicken and
some mandioc and six pounds of rice, and would take no
payment ; he lived in a roomy house with his dusky, cigar-
smoking wife and his many children. The new canoe
was light and roomy, and we were able to rig up a low
shelter under which I could lie; I was still sick. At noon
we passed the mouth of a big river, the Rio Branco, com-
ing in from the left; this was about in latitude 9° 38’.
Soon afterward we came to the first serious rapids, the
Panela. We carried the boats past, ran down the empty
canoes, and camped at the foot in a roomy house. The
doctor bought a handsome trumpeter bird, very friendly
and confiding, which was thenceforth my canoe com-
panion.

We had already passed many inhabited—and a still
larger number of uninhabited—houses. The dwellers
were rubber-men, but generally they were permanent set-
tlers also, home-makers, with their wives and children.
Some, both of the men and women, were apparently of
pure negro blood, or of pure Indian or south European
blood; but in the great majority all three strains were
‘mixed in varying degrees. They were most friendly,
courteous, and hospitable. Often they refused payment
for what they could afford, out of their little, to give us.
When they did charge, the prices were very high, as was
but just, for they live back of the beyond, and everything
costs them fabulously, save what they raise themselves.
The cool, bare houses of poles and palm thatch contained

332 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

little except hammocks and a few simple cooking uten-
sils; and often a clock or sewing-machine, or Winchester
rifle, from our own country. They often had flowers
planted, including fragrant roses. Their only live stock,
except the dogs, were a few chickens and ducks. They
planted patches of mandioc, maize, sugar-cane, rice,
beans, squashes, pineapples, bananas, lemons, oranges,
melons, peppers; and various purely native fruits and
vegetables, such as the kniabo—a vegetable-fruit growing
on the branches of a high bush—which is cooked with
meat. They get some game from the forest, and more
fish from the river. There is no representative of the
government among them—indeed, even now their very
existence is barely known to the governmental authori-
ties; and the church has ignored them as completely as
the state. When they wish to get married they have to
spend several months getting down to and back from
Manaos or some smaller city; and usually the first chris-
tening and the marriage ceremony are held at the same
time. They have merely squatter’s right to the land,
and are always in danger of being ousted by unscrupulous
big men who come in late, but with a title technically
straight. The land laws should be shaped so as to give
each of these pioneer settlers the land he actually takes
up and cultivates, and upon which he makes his home.
The small home-maker, who owns the land which he tills
with his own hands, is the greatest element of strength in
any country.

These are real pioneer settlers. They are the true
wilderness-winners. No continent is ever really con-
quered, or thoroughly explored, by a few leaders, or

To the Amazon and Home 333

exceptional men, although such men can render great
service. The real conquest, the thorough exploration and
settlement, is made by a nameless multitude of small men
of whom the most important are, of course, the home-
makers. Each treads most of the time in the footsteps
of his predecessors, but for some few miles, at some time
or other, he breaks new ground; and his house is bnilt
where no house has ever stood before. Such a man, the
real pioneer, must have no strong desire for social life
and no need, probably no knowledge, of any luxury, or
of any comfort save of the most elementary kind. The
pioneer who is always longing for the comfort and luxury
of civilization, and especially of great cities, is no real
pioneer at all. These settlers whom we met were con-
tented to live in the wilderness. They had found the
climate healthy and the soil fruitful; a visit to a city was
a very rare event, nor was there any overwhelming de-
sire for it.

In short, these men, and those like them everywhere
on the frontier between civilization and savagery in
Brazil, are now playing the part played by our back-
woodsmen when over a century and a quarter ago they
began the conquest of the great basin of the Mississippi;
the part played by the Boer farmers for over a century in
South Africa, and by the Canadians when less than half
a century ago they began to take possession of their
Northwest. Every now and then some one says that
the “last frontier” is now to be found in Canada or
Africa, and that it has almost vanished. Ona far larger
scale this frontier is to be found in Brazil—a country as
big as Europe or the United States—and decades will

334 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

pass before it vanishes. The first settlers came to Brazil
a century before the first settlers came to the United
States and Canada. For three hundred years progress
was very slow—Portuguese colonial government at that
time was almost as bad as Spanish. For the last half-
century and over there has been a steady increase in the
rapidity of the rate of development ; and this increase bids
fair to be constantly more rapid in the future.

The Paolistas, hunting for lands, slaves, and mines,
were the first native Brazilians who, a hundred years ago,
played a great part in opening to settlement vast stretches
of wilderness. The rubber hunters have played a similar
part during the last few decades. Rubber dazzled them,
as gold and diamonds have dazzled other men and driven
them forth to wander through the wide waste spaces of
the world. Searching for rubber they made highways
of rivers the very existence of which was unknown to
the governmental authorities, or to any map-makers.
Whether they succeeded or failed, they everywhere left
behind them settlers, who toiled, married, and brought up
children. Settlement began; the conquest of the wilder-
ness entered on its first stage.

On the 20th we stopped at the first store, where we
bought, of course at a high price, sugar and tobacco for
the camaradas. In this land of plenty the camaradas
over-ate, and sickness was as rife among them as ever.
In Cherrie’s boat he himself and the steersman were the
only men who paddled strongly and continuously. The
storekeeper’s stock of goods was very low, only what he
still had left from that brought in nearly a year before;
for the big boats, or bateléos—batelons—had not yet

To the Amazon and Home 335

worked as far up-stream. We expected to meet them
somewhere below the next rapids, the Inferno. The
trader or rubber-man brings up his year’s supply of goods
in a batelao, starting in February and reaching the upper
course of the river early in May, when the rainy season
is over. The parties of rubber-explorers are then
equipped and provisioned; and the settlers purchase cer-
tain necessities, and certain things that strike them as
luxuries. This year the Brazil-nut crop on the river had
failed, a serious thing for all explorers and wilderness
wanderers.

On the 20th we made the longest run we had made,
fifty-two kilometres. Lyra took observations where we
camped; we were in latitude 8° 49’. At this camping-
place the great, beautiful river was a little over three
hundred metres wide. We were in an empty house. The
marks showed that in the high water, a couple of months
back, the river had risen until the lower part of the house
was flooded. The difference between the level of the
river during the floods and in the dry season is extraor-
dinary.

On the 21st we made another good run, getting down
to the Inferno rapids, which are in latitude 8° 19’ south.
Until we reached the Cardozo we had run almost due
north; since then we had been running a little west of
north. Before we reached these rapids we stopped at a
large, pleasant thatch house, and got a fairly big and
roomy as well as light boat, leaving both our two smaller
dugouts behind. Above the rapids a small river, the Ma-
deirainha, entered from the left. The rapids had a fall
of over ten metres, and the water was very wild and

336 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

rough. Met with for the first time, it would doubtless
have taken several days to explore a passage and, with
danger and labor, get the boats down. But we were no
longer exploring, pioneering, over unknown country. It
is easy to go where other men have prepared the way.
We had a guide; we took our baggage down by a carry
three-quarters of a kilometre long; and the canoes were
run through known channels the following morning. At
the foot of the rapids was a big house and store; and
camped at the head were a number of rubber-workers,
waiting for the big boats of the head rubber-men to work
their way up from below. They were a reckless set of
brown daredevils. These men lead hard lives of labor
and peril; they continually face death themselves, and
they think little of it in connection with others. It is
small wonder that they sometimes have difficulties with
the tribes of utterly wild Indians with whom they are
brought in contact, although there is a strong Indian
strain in their own blood.

The following morning, after the empty canoes had
been run down, we started, and made a rather short after-
noon’s journey. We had to take the baggage by one
tapids. We camped in an empty house, in the rain.
Next day we ran nearly fifty kilometres, the river making
a long sweep to the west. We met half a dozen batelaos
making their way up-stream, each with a crew of six or
eight men, and two of them with women and children in
addition. The crew were using very long poles, with
crooks, or rather the stubs of cut branches which served
as crooks, at the upper end. With these they hooked
into the branches and dragged themselves up along the

To the Amazon and Home 437

bank, in addition to poling where the depth permitted it.
The river was as big as the Paraguay at Corumbé; but,
in striking contrast to the Paraguay, there were few
water-birds. We ran some rather stiff rapids, the In-
fernino, without unloading, in the morning. In the
evening we landed for the night at a large, open, shed-
like house, where there were two or three pigs, the first
live stock we had seen other than poultry and ducks. It
was a dirty place, but we got some eggs.

The following day, the 24th, we ran down some fifty
kilometres to the Carupanan rapids, which by observation
Lyra found to be in latitude 7° 47’. We met several
batelaos, and the houses on the bank showed that the set-
tlers were somewhat better off than was the case farther
up. At the rapids was a big store, the property of Senhor
Caripe, the wealthiest rubber-man who works on this
river; many of the men we met were in his employ. He
has himself risen from the ranks. He was most kind and
hospitable, and gave us another boat to replace the last
of our shovel-nosed dugouts. The large, open house was
cool, clean, and comfortable.

With these began a series of half a dozen sets of
rapids, all coming within the next dozen kilometres, and
all offering very real obstacles. At one we saw the graves
of four men who had perished therein; and many more
had died whose bodies were never recovered; the toll of
human life had been heavy. Had we been still on an un-
known river, pioneering our own way, it would doubtless
have taken us at least a fortnight of labor and peril to
pass. But it actually took only a day and a half. All
the channels were known, all the trails cut. Senhor

338 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

Caripe, a first-class waterman, cool, fearless, and brawny
as a bull, came with usas guide. Half a dozen times the
loads were taken out and carried down. At one cataract
the canoes were themselves dragged overland; elsewhere
they were run down empty, shipping a good deal of water.
At the foot of the cataract, where we dragged the canoes
overland, we camped for the night. Here Kermit shot
a big cayman. Our camp was alongside the graves of
three men who at this point had perished in the swift
water.

Senhor Caripe told us many strange adventures of
rubber-workers he had met or employed. One of his
men, working on the Gy-Parana, got lost and after
twenty-eight days found himself on the Madeirainha,
which he thus discovered. He was in excellent health,
for he had means to start a fire, and he found abundance
of Brazil-nuts and big land-tortoises. Senhor Caripe
said that the rubber-men now did not go above the ninth
degree, or thereabouts, on the upper Aripuanan proper,
having found the rubber poor on the reaches above. A
year previously five rubber-men, Mundurucu Indians,
were working on the Canuma at about that level. It is
a difficult stream to ascend or descend. They made ex-
cursions into the forest for days at a time after caout-
chouc. On one such trip, after fifteen days they, to their
surprise, came out on the Aripuanan. They returned and
told their “patron” of their discovery; and by his orders
took their caoutchouc overland to the Aripuanan, built a
canoe, and ran down with their caoutchouc to Manaos.
They had now returned and were working on the upper
Aripuanan. The Mundurucus and Brazilians are always

To the Amazon and Home 339

on the best terms, and the former are even more invet-
erate enemies of the wild Indians than are the latter.

By mid-forenoon on April 26 we had passed the last
dangerous rapids. The paddles were plied with hearty
good will, Cherrie and Kermit, as usual, working like the
camaradas, and the canoes went dancing down the broad,
rapid river. The equatorial forest crowded on either
hand to the water’s edge; and, although the river was fall-
ing, it was still so high that in many places little islands
were completely submerged, and the current raced among
the trunks of the green trees. At one o’clock we came to
the mouth of the Castanho proper, and in sight of the tent
of Lieutenant Pyrineus, with the flags of the United
States and Brazil flying before it; and, with rifles firing
from the canoes and the shore, we moored at the landing
of the neat, soldierly, well-kept camp. The upper Ari-
puanan, a river of substantially the same volume as the
Castanho, but broader at this point, and probably of less
length, here joined the Castanho from the east, and the
two together formed what the rubber-men called the
lower Aripuanan. The mouth of this was indicated, and
sometimes named, on the maps, but only as a small and
unimportant stream.

We had been two months in the canoes; from the
27th of February to the 26th of April. We had gone
over 750 kilometres. The river from its source, near
the thirteenth degree, to where it became navigable and
we entered it, had a course of some 200 kilometres—prob-
ably more, perhaps 300 kilometres. Therefore we had
now put on the map a river nearly 1,000 kilometres in
length of which the existence was not merely unknown

340 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

but impossible if the standard maps were correct. But
this was not all. It seemed that this river of 1,000 kilo-
metres in length was really the true upper course of the
Aripuanan proper, in which case the total length was
nearly 1,500 kilometres. Pyrineus had been waiting for
us over a month, at the junction of what the rubber-men
called the Castanho and of what they called the upper
Aripuanan. (He had no idea as to which stream we
would appear upon, or whether we would appear upon
either.) On March 26 he had measured the volume of
the two, and found that the Castanho, although the nar-
rower, was the deeper and swifter, and that in volume it
surpassed the other by 84 cubic metres a second. Since
then the Castanho had fallen; our measurements showed
it to be slightly smaller than the other; the volume of the
river after the junction was about 4,500 cubic metres a
second. This was in 7° 34.

We were glad indeed to see Pyrineus and be at his
attractive camp. We were only four hours above the
little river hamlet of Sao Jodo, a port of call for rubber-
steamers, from which the larger ones go to Manaos in
two days. These steamers mostly belong to Senhor
Caripe. From Pyrineus we learned that Lauriaddé and
Fiala had reached Manaos on March 26. On the swift
water in the gorge of the Papagaio Fiala’s boat had been
upset and all his belongings lost, while he himself had
narrowly escaped with his life. I was glad indeed that
the fine and gallant fellow had escaped. The Canadian
canoe had done very well. We were no less rejoiced to
learn that Amilcar, the head of the party that went down
the Gy-Parana, was also all right, although his canoe too

To the Amazon and Home 341

had been upset in the rapids, and his instruments and all
his notes lost. He had reached Manaos on April 10.
Fiala had gone home. Miller was collecting near Manaos.
He had been doing capital work.

The piranhas were bad here, and no one could bathe.
Cherrie, while standing in the water close to the shore,
was attacked and bitten; but with one bound he was on
the bank before any damage could be done.

We spent a last night under canvas, at Pyrineus’
encampment. It rained heavily. Next morning we all
gathered at the monument which Colonel Rondon had
erected, and he read the orders of the day. These recited
just what had been accomplished: set forth the fact that
we had now by actual exploration and investigation dis-
covered that the river whose upper portion had been
called the Duvida on the maps of the Telegraphic Com-
mission and the unknown major part of which we had
just traversed, and the river known to a few rubber-men,
but to no one else, as the Castanho, and the lower part of
the river known to the rubber-men as the Aripuanan
(which did not appear on the maps save as its mouth was
sometimes indicated, with no hint of its size) were all
parts of one and the same river; and that by order of the
Brazilian Government this river, the largest affluent of
the Madeira, with its source near the 13th degree and its
mouth a little south of the 5th degree, hitherto utterly
unknown to cartographers and in large part utterly un-
known to any save the local tribes of Indians, had been
named the Rio Roosevelt.

We left Rondon, Lyra, and Pyrineus to take observa-
tions, and the rest of us embarked for the last time on the

342 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

canoes, and, borne swiftly on the rapid current, we passed
over one set of not very important rapids and ran down
to Senhor Caripe’s little hamlet of Sao Joao, which we
reached about one o’clock on April 27, just before a heavy
afternoon rain set in. We had run nearly eight hundred
kilometres during the sixty days we had spent in the
canoes. Here we found and boarded Pyrineus’s river
steamer, which seemed in our eyes extremely comfortable.
In the senhor’s pleasant house we were greeted by the
senhora, and they were both more than thoughtful and
generous in their hospitality. Ahead of us lay merely
thirty-six hours by steamer to Manaos. Such a trip as
that we had taken tries men as if by fire. Cherrie had
more than stood every test; and in him Kermit and I had
come to recognize a friend with whom our friendship
would never falter or grow less.

Early the following afternoon our whole party, to-
gether with Senhor Caripe, started on the steamer. It
took us a little over twelve hours’ swift steaming to run
down to the mouth of the river on the upper course of
which our progress had been so slow and painful; from
source to mouth, according to our itinerary and to Lyra’s
calculations, the course of the stream down which we had
thus come was about 1,500 kilometres in length—about
900 miles, perhaps nearly 1,000 miles—from its source
near the 13th degree in the highlands to its mouth in the
Madeira, near the 5th degree. Next morning we were
on the broad sluggish current of the lower Madeira, a
beautiful tropical river. There were heavy rain-storms,
as usual, although this is supposed to be the very end of
the rainy season. In the afternoon we finally entered the

ra1dsayy) &Q YGdasojoyg D os y

“uopuoy Jatojoy <q pezesa JUaUMUOUT 94} PuNoIe pasayjeS seperewes sy],

To the Amazon and Home 343

wonderful Amazon itself, the mighty river which con-
tains one tenth of all the running water of the globe. It
was miles across, where we entered it; and indeed we
could not tell whether the farther bank, which we saw,
was that of the mainland or an island. We went up it
until about midnight, then steamed up the Rio Negro for
a short distance, and at one in the morning of April 30
reached Manaos.

Manaos is a remarkable city. It is only three degrees
south of the equator. Sixty years ago it was a nameless
little collection of hovels, tenanted by a few Indians and
a few of the poorest class of Brazilian peasants. Now it
is a big, handsome modern city, with opera-house, tram-
ways, good hotels, fine squares and public buildings, and
attractive private houses. The brilliant coloring and odd
architecture give the place a very foreign and attractive
flavor in northern eyes. Its rapid growth to prosperity
was due to the rubber-trade. This is now far less remu-
nerative than formerly. It will undoubtedly in some de-
gree recover; and in any event the development of the
immensely rich and fertile Amazonian valley is sure to
go on, and it will be immensely quickened when closer
connections are made with the Brazilian highland country
lying south of it.

Here we found Miller, and glad indeed we were to see
him. He had made good collections of mammals and
birds on the Gy-Parana, the Madeira, and in the neigh-
borhood of Manaos; his entire collection of mammals was
really noteworthy. Among them was the only sloth any
of us had seen on the trip. The most interesting of the
birds he had: seen was the hoatzin. This is a most curious

344 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

bird of very archaic type. Its flight is feeble, and the
naked young have spurs on their wings, by the help of
which they crawl actively among the branches before their
feathers grow. They swim no less easily, at the same
early age. Miller got one or two nests, and preserved
specimens of the surroundings of the nests; and he made
exhaustive records of the habits of the birds. Near Me-
gasso a jaguar had killed one of the bullocks that were
being driven along for food. The big cat had not seized
the ox with its claws by the head, but had torn open its
throat and neck.

Every one was most courteous at Manaos, especially
the governor of the state and the mayor of the city. Mr.
Robiliard, the British consular representative, and also
the representative of the Booth line of steamers, was par-
ticularly kind. He secured for us passages on one of the
cargo-boats of the line to Para, and thence on one of the
regular cargo-and-passenger steamers to Barbadoes and
New York. The Booth people were most courteous to us.

I said good-by to the camaradas with real friendship
and regret. The parting gift I gave to each was in gold
sovereigns; and I was rather touched to learn later that
they had agreed among themselves each to keep one sov-
ereign as a medal of honor and token that the owner had
been on the trip. They were a fine set, brave, patient,
obedient, and enduring. Now they had forgotten their
hard times; they were fat from eating, at leisure, all they
wished ; they were to see Rio Janeiro, always an object
of ambition with men of their stamp; and they were very
proud of their membership in the expedition.

Later, at Belén, I said good-by to Colonel Rondon,

To the Amazon and Home 345

Doctor Cajazeira, and Lieutenant Lyra. Together with
my admiration for their hardihood, courage, and resolu-
tion, I had grown to feel a strong and affectionate friend-
ship for them. I had become very fond of them; and I
was glad to feel that I had been their companion in the
performance of a feat which possessed a certain lasting
importance.

On May 1 we left Manaos for Belén—Para, as until
recently it was called. The trip was interesting. We
steamed down through tempest and sunshine; and the
towering forest was dwarfed by the giant river it fringed.
Sunrise and sunset turned the sky to an unearthly flame
of many colors above the vast water. It all seemed the
embodiment of loneliness and wild majesty. Yet every-
where man was conquering the loneliness and wresting
the majesty to his own uses. We passed many thriving,
growing towns; at one we stopped to take on cargo.
Everywhere there was growth and development. The
change since the days when Bates and Wallace came to
this then poor and utterly primitive region is marvellous.
One of its accompaniments has been a large European,
chiefly south European, immigration. The blood is
everywhere mixed ; there is no color line, as in most Eng-
lish-speaking countries, and the negro and Indian strains
are very strong; but the dominant blood, the blood al-
ready dominant in quantity, and that is steadily increasing
its dominance, is the olive-white.

Only rarely did the river show its full width. Gen-
erally we were in channels or among islands. The sur-
face of the water was dotted with little islands of floating
vegetation. Miller said that much of this came from the

346 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

lagoons such as those where he had been hunting, beside
the Solimoens—lagoons filled with the huge and splendid
Victoria lily, and with masses of water hyacinths. Miller,
who was very fond of animals and always took much
care of them, had a small collection which he was bring-
ing back for the Bronx Zoo. An agouti was so bad-tem-
pered that he had to be kept solitary; but three monkeys,
big, middle-sized, and little, and a young peccary formed
a happy family. The largest monkey cried, shedding real
tears, when taken in the arms and pitied. The middle-
sized monkey was stupid and kindly, and all the rest of
the company imposed on it; the little monkey invariably
rode on its back, and the peccary used it as a head pillow
when it felt sleepy.

Belén, the capital of the state of Para, was an ad-
mirable illustration of the genuine and almost startling
progress which Brazil has been making of recent years.
It is a beautiful city, nearly under the equator. But it
is not merely beautiful. The docks, the dredging opera-
tions, the warehouses, the stores and shops, all tell of
energy and success in commercial life. It is as clean,
healthy, and well policed a city as any of the size in the
north temperate zone. The public buildings are hand-
some, the private dwellings attractive; there are a fine
opera-house, an excellent tramway system, and a good
museum and botanical gardens. There are cavalry
stables, where lights burn all night long to protect the
horses from the vampire bats. The parks, the rows of
palms and mango-trees, the open-air restaurants, the gay
life under the lights at night, all give the city its own
special quality and charm. Belén and Manaos are very

To the Amazon and Home 347

striking examples of what can be done in the mid-tropics.
The governor of Para and his charming wife were more
than kind.

Cherrie and Miller spent the day at the really capital
zoological gardens, with the curator, Miss Snethlage.
Miss Snethlage, a German lady, is a first-rate field and
closet naturalist, and an explorer of note, who has gone
on foot from the Xingu to the Tapajos. Most wisely she
has confined the Belén zoo to the animals of the lower
Amazon valley, and in consequence I know of no better
local zoological gardens. She has an invaluable collec-
tion of birds and mammals of the region; and it was a
privilege to meet her and talk with her.

We also met Professor Farrabee, of the University of
Pennsylvania, the ethnologist. He had just finished a
very difficult and important trip, from Manaos by the Rio
Branco to the highlands of Guiana, across them on foot,
and down to the seacoast of British Guiana. He is an
admirable representative of the men who are now open-
ing South America to scientific knowledge.

On May 7 we bade good-by to our kind Brazilian
friends and sailed northward for Barbadoes and New
York.

Zoologically the trip had been a thorough success.
Cherrie and Miller had collected over twenty-five hun-
dred birds, about five hundred mammals, and a few rep-
tiles, batrachians, and fishes. Many of them were new
to science; for much of the region traversed had never
previously been worked by any scientific collector.

Of course, the most important work we did was the

348 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

geographic work, the exploration of the unknown river,
undertaken at the suggestion of the Brazilian Govern-
ment, and in conjunction with its representatives. No
piece of work of this kind is ever achieved save as it is
based on long-continued previous work. As I have
before said, what we did was to put the cap on the pyra-
mid that had been built by Colonel Rondon and his asso- .
ciates of the Telegraphic Commission during the six pre-
vious years, It was their scientific exploration of the
chapadao, their mapping the basin of the Juruena, and
their descent of the Gy-Parana that rendered it possible
for us to solve the mystery of the River of Doubt. On
the map facing page vii I have given the outline route of
my entire South American trip. The course of the new
river is given separately.

The work of the commission, much the greatest work
of the kind ever done in South America, is one of the
many, many achievements which the republican govern-
ment of Brazil has to its credit. Brazil has been blessed
beyond the average of her Spanish-American sisters
because she won her way to republicanism by evolution
rather than revolution. They plunged into the extremely
difficult experiment of democratic, of popular, self-gov-
ernment, after enduring the atrophy of every quality of
self-control, self-reliance, and initiative throughout three
withering centuries of existence under the worst and most
foolish form of colonial government, both from the civil
and the religious standpoint, that has ever existed. The
marvel is not that some of them failed, but that some of
them have eventually succeeded in such striking fashion.
Brazil, on the contrary, when she achieved independence,

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Sketch map of the unknown river christened Rio Roosevelt, and subsequently
Rio Téodoro, by direction of the Brazilian Government

This map was prepared by Colonel Roosevelt from his journal and the diaries of Cherrie and of Kermit
Roosevelt, the war having prevented the arrival of the map prepared by Lieutenant Lyra
The Ananas may be the headwaters of the Cardozo or of the Aripuanan, or it may flow into the Canuma
or Tapajos; it will not be put on the map until it is actually descended

To the Amazon and Home 349

first exercised it under the form of an authoritative em-
pire, then under the form of a liberal empire. When the
republic came, the people were reasonably ripe for it.
The great progress of Brazil—and it has been an aston-
ishing progress—has been made under the republic. I
could give innumerable examples and illustrations of this.
The change that has converted Rio Janeiro from a pic-
turesque pest-hole into a singularly beautiful, healthy,
clean, and efficient modern great city is one of these.
Another is the work of the Telegraphic Commission.

We put upon the map a river some fifteen hundred
kilometres in length, of which the upper course was not
merely utterly unknown to, but unguessed at by, any-
body; while the lower course, although known for years
to a few rubber-men, was utterly unknown to cartograph-
ers. It is the chief affluent of the Madeira, which is
itself the chief affluent of the Amazon.

The source of this river is between the 12th and 13th
parallels of latitude south and the 59th and 60th degrees
of longitude west from Greenwich. We embarked on it
at about latitude 12° 1’ south, and about longitude 60°
15’ west. After that its entire course lay between the
60th and 61st degrees of longitude, approaching the latter
most closely about latitude 8° 15’. The first rapids we
encountered were in latitude 11° 44’, and in uninterrupted
succession they continued for about a degree, without a
day’s complete journey between any two of them. At
11° 23’ the Rio Kermit entered from the left, at 11°
22’ the Rio Marciano Avila from the right, at 11°
18’ the Taunay from the left, at 10° 58’ the Cardozo
from the right. In 10° 24’ we encountered the first

350 Through the Brazilian Wilderness

rubber-men. The Rio Branco entered from the left at
9° 38’. Our camp at 8° 49’ was nearly on the boundary
between Matto Grosso and Amazonas. The confluence
with the Aripuanan, which joined from the right, took
place at 7° 34’. The entrance into the Madeira was at
about 5° 20’ (this point we did not determine by obser-
vation, as it is already on the maps). The stream we
had followed down was from the river’s highest sources;
we had followed its longest course.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

THE WORK OF THE FIELD ZOOLOGIST
AND FIELD GEOGRAPHER IN
SOUTH AMERICA

Portions of South America are now entering on a
career of great social and industrial development. Much
remains to be known, so far as the outside world is con-
cerned, of the social and industrial condition in the long-
settled interior regions. More remains to be done, in
the way of pioneer exploring and of scientific work, in
the great stretches of virgin wilderness. The only two
other continents where such work, of like volume and
value, remains to be done are Africa and Asia; and
neither Africa nor Asia offers a more inviting field for
the best kind of field worker in geographical exploration
and in zoological, geological, and paleontological investi-
gation. The explorer is merely the most adventurous
kind of field geographer; and there are two or three
points worth keeping in mind in dealing with the South
American work of the field geographer and field zoologist.

Roughly, the travellers who now visit (like those who
for the past century have visited) South America come
in three categories—although, of course, these categories
are not divided by hard-and-fast lines.

First, there are the travellers who skirt the continent

353

354 Appendix A

in comfortable steamers, going from one great seaport to
another, and occasionally taking a short railway journey
to some big interior city not too far from the coast. This
is a trip well worth taking by all intelligent men and
women who can afford it; and it is being taken by such
men and women with increasing frequency. It entails
no more difficulty than a similar trip to the Mediterranean
—than such a trip as that which Mark Twain immortal-
ized. It is a trip which to a learned and broad-minded
observer offers the same chance for acquiring knowledge
and, if he is himself gifted with wisdom, the same chance
of imparting his knowledge to others that is offered by a
trip of similar length through the larger cities of Europe
or the United States. Probably the best instance of the
excellent use to which such an observer can put his experi-
ence is afforded by the volume of Mr. Bryce. Of course,
such a trip represents travelling of essentially the same
kind as travelling by railroad from Atlanta to Calgary
or from Madrid to Moscow.

Next there are the travellers who visit the long-settled
districts and colonial cities of the interior, travelling over
land or river highways which have been traversed for
centuries but which are still primitive as regards the inns
and the modes of conveyance. Such travelling is difficult
in the sense that travelling in parts of Spain or. southern
Italy or the Balkan states is difficult. Men and women
who have a taste for travel in out-of-the-way places and
who, therefore, do not mind slight discomforts and in-
conveniences have the chance themselves to enjoy, and
to make others profit by, travels of this kind in South
America. In economic, social, and political matters the

Appendix A 355

studies and observations of these travellers are essential
in order to supplement, and sometimes to correct, those
of travellers of the first category; for it is not safe to
generalize overmuch about any country merely from a
visit to its capital or its chief seaport. These travellers
of the second category can give us most interesting and
valuable information about quaint little belated cities;
about backward country folk, kindly or the reverse, who
show a mixture of the ideas of savagery with the ideas
of an ancient peasantry; and about rough old highways
of travel which in comfort do not differ much from those
of medieval Europe. The travellers who go up or down
the highway rivers that have been travelled for from one
to four hundred years—rivers like the Paraguay and
Parana, the Amazon, the Tapajos, the Madeira, the lower
Orinoco—come in this category. They can add little to
our geographical knowledge; but if they are competent
zoologists or archeologists, especially if they live or so-
journ long in a locality, their work may be invaluable
from the scientific standpoint. The work of the arche-
ologists among the immeasurably ancient ruins of the low-
land forests and the Andean plateaux is of this kind.
What Agassiz did for the fishes of the Amazon and what
Hudson did for the birds of the Argentine are other in-
stances of the work that can thus be done. Burton’s
writings on the interior of Brazil offer an excellent in-
stance of the value of a sojourn or trip of this type, even
without any especial scientific object.

Of course travellers of this kind need to remember
that their experiences in themselves do not qualify them
to speak as wilderness explorers. Exactly as a good arch-

350 Appendix A

eologist may not be competent to speak of current social
or political problems, so a man who has done capital work
as a tourist observer in little-visited cities and along re-
mote highways must beware of regarding himself as
being thereby rendered fit for genuine wilderness work or
competent to pass judgment on the men who do such
work, To cross the Andes on mule-back along the reg-
ular routes is a feat comparable to the feats of the ener-
getic tourists who by thousands traverse the mule trails
in out-of-the-way nooks of Switzerland. An ordinary
trip on the highway portions of the Amazon, Paraguay,
or Orinoco in itself no more qualifies a man to speak of
or to take part in exploring unknown South American
rivers than a trip on the lower Saint Lawrence qualifies
a man to regard himself as an expert in a canoe voyage
across Labrador or the Barren Grounds west of Hudson
Bay.

A hundred years ago, even seventy or eighty years ago,
before the age of steamboats and railroads, it was more
difficult than at present to define the limits between this
class and the next; and, moreover, in defining these limits
I emphatically disclaim any intention of thereby attempt-
ing to establish a single standard of value for books of
travel. Darwin’s “Voyage of the Beagle” is to me the
best book of the kind ever written; it is one of those clas-
sics which decline to go into artificial categories, and
which stand by themselves; and yet Darwin, with his
usual modesty, spoke of it as in effect a yachting voyage.
Humboldt’s work had a profound effect on the thought
of the civilized world; his trip was one of adventure and
danger ; and yet it can hardly be called exploration proper.

Appendix A 357

He visited places which had been settled and inhabited for
centuries and traversed places which had been travelled
by civilized men for years before he followed in their
footsteps. But these places were in Spanish colonies,
and access to them had been forbidden by the mischievous
and intolerant tyranny—ecclesiastical, political, and eco-
nomic—which then rendered Spain the most backward of
European nations; and Humboldt was the first scientific
man of intellectual independence who had permission to
visit them. To this day many of his scientific observa-
tions are of real value. Bates came to the Amazon just
before the era of Amazonian steamboats. He never
went off the native routes of ordinary travel. But he
was a devoted and able naturalist. He lived an exceed-
ingly isolated, primitive, and laborious life for eleven
years. Now, half a century after it was written, his
“Naturalist on the Amazon” is as interesting and valuable
as it ever was, and no book since written has in any way
supplanted it.

Travel of the third category includes the work of the
true wilderness explorers who add to our sum of geo-
graphical knowledge and of the scientific men who, fol-
lowing their several bents, also work in the untrodden
wilds. Colonel Rondon and his associates have done
much in the geographical exploration of unknown coun-
try, and Cherrie and Miller have penetrated and lived for
months and years in the wastes, on their own resources,
as incidents to their mammalogical and ornithological
work. Professor Farrabee, the anthropologist, is a cap-
ital example of the man who does this hard and valuable
type of work.

358 Appendix A

An immense amount of this true wilderness work,
geographical and zoological, remains to be done in South
America. It can be accomplished with reasonable thor-
oughness only by the efforts of very many different work-
ers, each in his own special field. It is desirable that
here and there a part of the work should be done in out-
line by such a geographic and zoological reconnaissance
as ours; we would, for example, be very grateful for
such work in portions of the interior of the Guianas, on
the headwaters of the Xingu, and here and there along
the eastern base of the Andes.

But as a rule the work must be specialized ; and in its
final shape it must be specialized everywhere. The first
geographical explorers of the untrodden wilderness, the
first wanderers who penetrate the wastes where they are
confronted with starvation, disease, and danger and death
in every form, cannot take with them the elaborate equip-
ment necessary in order to do the thorough scientific
work demanded by modern scientific requirements. This
is true even of exploration done along the courses of un-
known rivers; it is more true of the exploration, which
must in South America become increasingly necessary,
done across country, away from the rivers.

The scientific work proper of these early explorers
must be of a somewhat preliminary nature; in other words
the most difficult and therefore ordinary the most impor-
tant pieces of first-hand exploration are precisely those
where the scientific work of the accompanying cartog-
rapher, geologist, botanist, and zoologist must be furthest
removed from finality. The zoologist who works to most
advantage in the wilderness must take his time, and there-

Appendix A 359

fore he must normally follow in the footsteps of, and not
accompany, the first explorers. The man who wishes to
do the best scientific work in the wilderness must not try
to combine incompatible types of work nor to cover too
much ground in too short a time.

There is no better example of the kind of zoologist
who does first-class field-work in the wilderness than John
D. Haseman, who spent from 1907 to 1910 in painstak-
ing and thorough scientific investigation over a large ex-
tent of South American territory hitherto only partially
known or quite unexplored. Haseman’s primary object
was to study the characteristics and distribution of South
American fishes, but as a matter of fact he studied at first
hand many other more or less kindred subjects, as may
be seen in his remarks on the Indians and in his excellent
pamphlet on “Some Factors of Geographical Distribution
in South America.”

Haseman made his long journey with a very slender
equipment, his extraordinarily successful field-work being
due to his bodily health and vigor and his resourcefulness,
self-reliance, and resolution. His writings are rendered
valuable by his accuracy and common sense. The need
of the former of these two attributes will be appreciated
by whoever has studied the really scandalous fictions
which have been published as genuine by some modern
“explorers” and adventurers in South America ;* and the

*It would be well if a geographical society of standing would
investigate the formal and official charges made by Colonel Rondon,
an officer and gentleman of the highest repute, against Mr. Savage
Landor. Colonel Rondon, in an official report to the Brazilian
Government, has written a scathing review of Mr. Landor. He

states that Mr. Savage Landor did not perform, and did not even
attempt to perform, the work he had contracted to do in explora-

360 Appendix A

need of the latter by whoever has studied some of the
wild theories propounded in the name of science concern-
ing the history of life on the South American continent.
There is, however, one serious criticism to be made on
Haseman: the extreme obscurity of his style—an obscur-
ity mixed with occasional bits of scientific pedantry,
which makes it difficult to tell whether or not on some
points his thought is obscure also. Modern scientists,
like modern historians and, above all, scientific and his-
torical educators, should ever keep in mind that clearness
of speech and writing is essential to clearness of thought
and that a simple, clear, and, if possible, vivid style is vital
to the production of the best work in either science or his-
tory. Darwin and Huxley are classics, and they would

tion for the Brazilian Government. Mr. Landor had asserted and
promised that he would go through unknown country along the line
of eleven degrees latitude south, and, as Colonel Rondon states, it
was because of this proposal of his that the Brazilian Government
gave him material financial assistance in advance. However, Colonel
Rondon sets forth that Mr. Landor did not keep his word or make
any serious effort to fulfil his moral obligation to do as he had
said he would do. In a letter to me under date of May 1, 1914—
a letter which has been published in full in France—Colonel Rondon
goes at length into the question of what territory Mr. Landor had
traversed. Colonel Rondon states that—excepting on one occasion,
when Mr. Landor, wandering off a beaten trail, immediately got
lost and shortly returned to his starting-point without making any
discoveries—he kept to old, well-travelled routes. One sentence of
the colonel’s letter to me runs as follows: “I can guarantee to you
that in Brazil Mr. Landor did not cross a hand’s breadth of land
that had not been explored, the greater part of it many centuries
ago.” As regards Mr. Landor’s sole and brief experience in leaving
a beaten route, Colonel Rondon states that at Sao Manoel Mr.
Landor engaged from Senhor José Sotero Barreto (the revenue
officer of Matto Grosso, at Sdo Manoel) a guide to lead him across
a_well-travelled trail which connects the Tapajos with the Madeira
via the Canama. The guide, however, got lost, and after a few
days they all returned to the point of departure instead of going
through to the Canama.

Senhor Barreto, a gentleman of high standing, related this last
incident to Fiala when Fiala descended the Tapajos (and, by the

Appendix A 361

not have been if they had not written good English. The
thought is essential, but ability to give it clear expression
is only less essential. Ability to write well, if the writer
has nothing to write about, entitles him to mere derision.
But the greatest thought is robbed of an immense pro-
portion of its value if expressed in a mean or obscure
manner. Mr. Haseman has such excellent thought that
it is a pity to make it a work of irritating labor to find
out just what the thought is. Surely, if he will take as
much pains with his writing as he has with the far more
difficult business of exploring and collecting, he will be-
come able to express his thought clearly and forcefully.
At least he can, if he chooses, go over his sentences until
he is reasonably sure that they can be parsed. He can

way, Fiala’s trip down the Papagaio, Juruena, and Tapajos was
infinitely more important than all the work Mr. Landor did in
South America put together). Lieutenants Pyrineus and Mello,
mentioned in the body of this work, informed me that they accom-
panied Mr. Landor on most of his overland trip before he embarked
on the Arinos, and that he simply followed the highroad or else
tbe telegraph-line, and furthermore, Colonel Rondon states that the
Indians whom Mr. Landor encountered and photographed were
those educated at the missions.

Colonel Rondon’s official report to the Brazilian Government and
his letter to me are of interest to all geographers and other scientific
men who have any concern with the alleged discoveries of Mr.
Landor. They contain very grave charges, with which it is not
necessary for me to deal. Suffice it to say that Mr. Landor’s ac-
counts of his alleged exploration cannot be considered as entitled
to the slightest serious consideration until he has satisfactorily and
in detail answered Colonel Rondon; and this he has thus far signally
failed to do.

Fortunately, there are numerous examples of exactly the opposite
type of work. From the days of Humboldt and Spix and Martius
to the present time, German explorers have borne a conspicuous
part in the exploration of South America. As representatives of
the men and women who have done such capital work, who have
fronted every hazard and hardship and labored in the scientific
spirit, and who have added greatly to our fund of geographic,
biologic, and ethnographic knowledge, I may mention Miss Snethlage
and Herr Karl von den Steinen,

362 Appendix A

take pains to see that his whole thought is expressed, in-
stead of leaving vacancies which must be filled by the
puzzled and groping reader. His own views and his quo-
tations from the views of others about the static and
dynamic theories of distribution are examples of an im-
portant principle so imperfectly expressed as to make us
doubtful whether it is perfectly apprehended by the
writer. He can avoid the use of those pedantic terms
which are really nothing but offensive and, fortunately,
ephemeral scientific slang. There has been, for instance,
a recent vogue for the extensive misuse, usually tauto-
logical misuse, of the word “complexus’—an excellent
word if used rarely and for definite purposes. Mr. Hase-
man drags it in continually when its use is either point-
less and redundant or else serves purely to darken wis-
dom. He speaks of the “Antillean complex” when he
means the Antilles, of the “organic complex” instead of
the characteristic or bodily characteristics of an animal
or species, and of the “environmental complex” when he
means nothing whatever but the environment. In short,
Mr. Haseman and those whose bad example he in this
instance follows use “complexus” in much the same
spirit as that displayed by the famous old lady who de-
rived religious—instead of scientific—consolation from
the use of “the blessed word Mesopotamia.”

The reason that it is worth while to enter this protest
against Mr. Haseman’s style is because his work is of
such real and marked value. The pamphlet on the dis-
tribution of South American species shows that to excep-
tional ability as a field worker he adds a rare power to
draw, with both caution and originality, the necessary

Appendix A 363

general conclusions from the results of his own obser-
vations and from the recorded studies of other men; and
there is nothing more needed at the present moment
among our scientific men than the development of a school
of men who, while industrious and minute observers and
collectors and cautious generalizers, yet do not permit
the faculty of wise generalization to be atrophied by ex-
cessive devotion to labyrinthine detail.

Haseman upholds with strong reasoning the theory
that since the appearance of all but the lowest forms of
life on this globe there have always been three great con-
tinental masses, sometimes solid sometimes broken, ex-
tending southward from the northern hemisphere, and
from time to time connected in the north, but not in the
middle regions or the south since the carboniferous epoch.
He holds that life has been intermittently distributed
southward along these continental masses when there
were no breaks in their southward connection, and inter-
mittently exchanged between them when they were con-
nected in the north; and he also upholds the view that
from a common ancestral form the same species has
been often developed in entirely disconnected localities
when in these localities the conditions of environment
were the same.

The opposite view is that there have been frequent
connections between the great land masses, alike in the
tropics, in the south temperate zone, and in the antarctic
region. The upholders of this theory base it almost ex-
clusively on the distribution of living and fossil forms
of life; that is, it is based almost exclusively on biological
and not geological considerations. Unquestionably, the

364 Appendix A

distribution of many forms of life, past and present,
offers problems which with our present paleontological
knowledge we are wholly unable to solve. If we consider
only the biological facts concerning some one group of
animals it is not only easy but inevitable to conclude that
its distribution must be accounted for by the existence
of some former direct land bridge extending, for in-
stance, between Patagonia and Australia, or between
Brazil and South Africa, or between the West Indies and
the Mediterranean, or between a part of the Andean
region and northeastern Asia. The trouble is that as
more groups of animals are studied from the standpoint
of this hypothesis the number of such land bridges de-
manded to account for the existing facts of animal dis-
tribution is constantly and indefinitely extended. A
recent book by one of the most learned advocates of this
hypothesis calls for at least ten such land bridges between
South America and all the other continents, present and
past, of the world since a period geologically not very
remote. These land bridges, moreover, must, many of
them, have been literally bridges; long, narrow tongues
of land thrust in every direction across the broad oceans.
According to this view the continental land masses have
been in a fairly fluid condition of instability. By parity
of reasoning, the land bridges could be made a hundred
instead of merely ten in number. The facts of distribu-
tion are in many cases inexplicable with our present
knowledge; yet if the existence of widely separated but
closely allied forms is habitually to be explained in ac-
cordance with the views of the extremists of this school
we could, from the exclusive study of certain groups of

Appendix A 365

animals, conclude that at different periods the United
States and almost every other portion of the earth were
connected by land and severed from all other regions by
water—and, from the study of certain other groups of
animals, arrive at directly opposite and incompatible
conclusions.

The most brilliant and unsafe exponent of this school
was Ameghino, who possessed and abused two gifts,
both essential to the highest type of scientist, and both
mischievous unless this scientist possess a rare and ac-
curate habit of thought joined to industry and mastery
of detail:—namely, the gift of clear and interesting
writing, and the gift of generalization. Ameghino
rendered marked services to paleontology. But he gen-
eralized with complete recklessness from the slenderest
data; and even these data he often completely misunder-
stood or misinterpreted. His favorite thesis included the
origin of mammalian life and of man himself in south-
ernmost South America, with, as incidents, the belief that
the mammalian-bearing strata of South America were of
much greater age than the strata with corresponding re-
mains elsewhere; that in South America various species
and genera of men existed in tertiary times, some of them
at least as advanced as fairly well advanced modern
savages; that there existed various land bridges between
South America and other southern continents, including
Africa; and that the ancestral types of modern mammals
and of man himself wandered across one of these bridges
to the old world, and that thence their remote descen-
dants, after ages of time, returned to the new. In addi-
tion to valuable investigations of fossil-bearing beds in

366 Appendix A

the Argentine, he made some excellent general sugges-
tions, such as that the pithecoid apes, like the baboons,
do not stand in the line of man’s ancestral stem but
represent a divergence from it away from humanity and
toward a retrogressive bestialization. But of his main
theses he proves none, and what evidence we have tells
against them. At the Museum of La Plata I found that
the authorities were practically a unit in regarding his
remains of tertiary men and proto-men as being either
the remains of tertiary American monkeys or of Ameri-
can Indians from strata that were long post-tertiary.
The extraordinary discovery, due to that eminent scientist
and public servant Doctor Moreno, of the remains of
man associated with the remains of the great extinct
South American fauna, of the mylodon, of a giant ungu-
late, of a huge cat like the lion, and of an extraordinary
aberrant horse (of a wholly different genus from the
modern horse) conclusively shows that in its later stages
the South American fauna consisted largely of types
that elsewhere had already disappeared and that these
types persisted into what was geologically a very recent
period only some tens of thousands of years ago, when
savage man of practically a modern type had already
appeared in South America. The evidence we have, so
far as it goes, tends to show that the South American
fauna always has been more archaic in type than the
arctogeal fauna of the same chronological level.

‘To loose generalizations, and to elaborate misinterpre-
tations of paleontological records, the kind of work done
by Mr. Haseman furnishes an invaluable antiscorbutic.
To my mind, he has established a stronger presumption

Appendix A 367

in favor of the theory he champions than has been es-
tablished in favor of the theories of any of the learned
and able scientific men from whose conclusions he dis-
sents. Further research, careful, accurate, and long ex-
tended, can alone enable us to decide definitely in the
matter; and this research, to be effective, must be un-
dertaken by many men, each of whom shall in large
measure possess Mr. Haseman’s exceptional power of
laborious work both in the field and in the study, his in-
sight and accuracy of observation, and his determina-
tion to follow truth with inflexible rectitude wherever it
may lead—one of the greatest among the many great
qualities which lifted Huxley and Darwin above their
fellows.

APPENDIX B

THE OUTFIT FOR TRAVELLING IN THE
SOUTH AMERICAN WILDERNESS

Souto America includes so many different kinds of
country that it is impossible to devise a scheme of equip-
ment which shall suit all. A hunting-trip in the panta-
nals, in the swamp country of the upper Paraguay, offers
a simple problem. An exploring trip through an un-
known tropical forest region, even if the work is chiefly
done by river, offers a very difficult problem. All that
I can pretend to do is to give a few hints as the results
of our own experience.

For bedding there should be a hammock, mosquito-
net, and light blanket. These can be obtained in Brazil.
For tent a light fly is ample; ours were brought with us
from New York. In exploring only the open fly should
be taken; but on trips where weight of luggage is no ob-
jection, there can be walls to the tent and even a canvas
floor-cloth. Camp-chairs and a camp table should be
brought—any good outfitter in the United States will
supply them—and not thrown away until it becomes
imperative to cut everything down. On a river trip,
first-class pulleys and ropes—preferably steel, and at any
rate very strong—should be taken. Unless the difficulties
of transportation are insuperable, canvas-and-cement
canoes, such as can be obtained from various firms in
Canada and the United States, should by all means be

368

Appendix B 369

taken. They are incomparably superior to the dugouts.
But on different rivers wholly different canoes, of wholly
different sizes, will be needed; on some steam or electric
launches may be used; it is not possible to lay down a
general rule.

As regards arms, a good plain 12-bore shotgun with
a 30-30 rifle-barrel underneath the others is the best
weapon to have constantly in one’s hand in the South
American forests, where big game is rare and yet may at
any time come in one’s path. When specially hunting
the jaguar, marsh-deer, tapir, or big peccary, an ordinary
light repeating rifle—the 30-30, 30-40, or 256—is pref-
erable. No heavy rifle is necessary for South America.
Tin boxes or trunks are the best in which to carry one’s
spare things. A good medicine-chest is indispensable.
Nowadays doctors know so much of tropical diseases
that there is no difficulty in fitting one out. It is better
not to make the trip at all than to fail to take an ample
supply of quinine pills. Cholera pills and cathartic pills
come next in importance. In liquid shape there should
be serum to inject for the stoppage of amcebic dysentery,
and anti-snake-venom serum. Fly-dope should be taken
in quantities.

For clothing Kermit and I used what was left over
from our African trip. Sun helmets are best in the
open; slouch-hats are infinitely preferable in the woods.
There should be hobnailed shoes—the nails many and
small, not few and large; and also moccasins or rubber-
soled shoes; and light, flexible leggins. Tastes differ in
socks; I like mine of thick wool. A khaki-colored shirt
should be worn, or, as a better substitute, a khaki jacket

370 Appendix B

with many pockets. Very light underclothes are good.
If one’s knees and legs are unfortunately tender, knicker-
bockers with long stockings and leggins should be worn;
ordinary trousers tend to bind the knee. Better still,
if one’s legs will stand the exposure, are shorts, not
coming down to the knee. A kilt would probably be best
of all. Kermit wore shorts in the Brazilian forest, as he
had already worn them in Africa, in Mexico, and in the
New Brunswick woods. Some of the best modern
hunters always wear shorts; as for example, that first-
class sportsman the Duke of Alva.

Mr. Fiala, after the experience of his trip down the
Papagaio, the Juruena, and the Tapajos, gives his judg-
ment about equipment and provisions as follows:

The history of South American exploration has been
full of the losses of canoes and cargoes and lives. The
native canoe made from the single trunk of a forest giant
is the craft that has been used. It is durable and if lost
can be readily replaced from the forest by good men
with axes and adzes. But, because of its great weight
and low free-board, it is unsuitable as a freight carrier
and by reason of the limitations of its construction is not
of the correct form to successfully run the rapid and bad
waters of many of the South American rivers. The
North American Indian has undoubtedly developed a
vastly superior craft in the birch-bark canoe and with it
will run rapids that a South American Indian with his
log canoe would not think of attempting, though, as a
general thing, the South American Indian is a wonderful
waterman, the equal and, in some ways, the superior of

Appendix B 371

his northern contemporary. At the many carries or
portages the light birch-bark canoe or its modern repre-
sentative, the canvas-covered canoe, can be picked up
bodily and carried by from two to four men for several
miles, if necessary, while the log canoe has to be hauled
by ropes and back-breaking labor over rollers that have
first to be cut from trees in the forest, or at great risk
led along the edge of the rapids with ropes and hooks
and poles, the men often up to their shoulders in the
rushing waters, guiding the craft to a place of safety.

The native canoe is so long and heavy that it is diffi-
cult to navigate without some bumps on the rocks. In
fact, it is usually dragged over the rocks in the shallow
water near shore in preferance to taking the risk of a
plunge through the rushing volume of deeper water, for
reasons stated above. The North American canoe can
be turned with greater facility in critical moments in
bad water. Many a time I heard my steersman exclaim
with delight as we took a difficult passage between two
rocks with our loaded Canadian canoe. In making the
same passage the dugout would go sideways toward the
rapid until by a supreme effort her three powerful pad-
dlers and steersman would right her just in time. The
native canoe would ship great quantities of water in
places the Canadian canoe came through without taking
any water on board. We did bump a few rocks under
water, but the canoe was so elastic that no damage was
done.

Our nineteen-foot canvas-covered freight canoe, a
type especially built for the purpose on deep, full lines
with high free-board, weighed about one hundred and

372 Appendix B

sixty pounds and would carry a ton of cargo with ease—
and also take it safely where the same cargo distributed
among two or three native thirty or thirty-five foot
canoes would be lost. The native canoes weigh from
about nine hundred to two thousand five hundred pounds
and more.

In view of the above facts the explorer-traveller is
advised to take with him the North American canoe if
he intends serious work. Two canoes would be a good
arrangement for from five to seven men, with at least one
steersman and two paddlers to each canoe. The canoes
can be purchased in two sizes and nested for transporta-
tion, an arrangement which would have considerable
expense in freight bills. At least six paddles should be
packed with each boat, in length four and one half, four
and three fourths, and five feet. Other paddles from six
and one half feet to eight and one half feet should be
provided for steering oars. The native paddler, after he
has used the light Canadian paddle, prefers it to the best
native make. My own paddlers lost or broke all of their
own paddles so as to get the North American ones, which
they marked with their initials and used most carefully.

To each canoe it would be well to have two copper
air tanks, one fore, one aft, a hand-hole in each with a
water-tight screw cover on hatch. In these tanks could
be kept a small supply of matches, the chronometer or
watch which is used for position, and the scientific
records and diary. Of course, the fact should be kept in
mind that these are air tanks, not to be used so as to
appreciably diminish their buoyancy. Each canoe should
also carry a small repair kit attached to one of the

Appendix B 272

thwarts, containing cement, a piece of canvas same as
cover of canoe, copper tacks, rivets, and some galvanized
nails; a good hatchet and a hammer; a small can of canoe
paint, spar varnish, and copper paint for worn places
would be a protection against termites and torrential
downpours. In concluding the subject of canoes I can
state that the traveller in South America will find no
difficulty in disposing of his craft at the end of his trip.

Motors.—We had with us a three and one half
horse-power motor which could be attached to stern or
gunwale of canoe or boat. It was made by the Evinrude
Motor Company, who had a magneto placed in the fly-
wheel of the engine so that we never had to resort to the
battery to run the motor. Though the motor was left out
in the rain and sun, often without a cover, by careless
native help, it never failed us. We found it particularly
valuable in going against the strong current of the Se-
potuba River where several all-night trips were made
up-stream, the motor attached to a heavy boat. For
exploration up-stream it would be valuable, particularly
as it is easily portable, weighing for the two horse-power
motor fifty pounds, for three and one half horse-power
one hundred pounds. If a carbureter could be attached
so that kerosene could be used it would add to its value
many times, for kerosene can be purchased almost any-
where in South America.

TENTS.—There is nothing better for material than
the light waterproof Sea Island cotton of American
manufacture, made under the trade name of waterproof
silk. It keeps out the heaviest rain and is very light.
Canvas becomes water-soaked, and cravenetted material

374 Appendix B

lets the water through. A waterproof canvas floor is a
luxury, and, though it adds to the weight, it may with
advantage be taken on ordinary trips. The tent should
be eight by eight or eight by nine feet, large enough to
swing a comfortable hammock. A waterproof canvas
bag, a loose-fitting envelope for the tent should be pro-
vided. Native help is, as a rule, careless, and the bag
would save wear and tear.

Hammocks.—The hammock is the South American
bed, and the traveller will find it exceedingly comfortable.
After leaving the larger cities and settlements a bed is a
rare object. All the houses are provided with extra ham-
mock hooks. The traveller will be entertained hospitably
and after dinner will be given two hooks upon which to
hang his hammock, for he will be expected to have his
hammock and, in insect time, his net, if he has nothing
else. As a rule, a native hammock and net can be pro-
cured in the field. But it is best to take a comfortable
one along, arranged with a fine-meshed net.

In regard to the folding cot: It is heavy and its
numerous legs form a sort of highway system over which
all sorts of insects can crawl up to the sleeper. The
ants are special pests and some of them can bite with the
enthusiastic vigor of beasts many times their size. The
canvas floor in a tent obviates to a degree the insect
annoyance.

The headwaters of the rivers are usually reached by
pack-trains of mules and oxen. The primitive ox-cart
also comes in where the trail is not too bad. One hun-
dred and sixty to one one hundred and eighty pounds is

Appendix B 375

a good load for the pack-animals, and none of the cases
should weigh more than fifty or sixty pounds. Each case
should be marked with its contents and gross and net
weight in kilos.

For personal baggage the light fibre sample case used
by travelling men in the United States does admirably.
The regulation fibre case with its metal binding sold for
the purpose is too heavy and has the bad feature of
swelling up under the influence of rain and dampness,
often necessitating the use of an axe or heavy hammer
to remove cover.

The ordinary fibre trunk is good for rail and steamer
travel, but it is absolutely unpractical for mule-back or
canoe. The fibre sample case could be developed into a
container particularly fitted for exploration. The fibre
should be soaked in hot paraffine and then hot-calendered
or hot-pressed. This case could then be covered with
waterproof canvas with throat opening like a duffel-bag.

The waterproof duffel-bags usually sold are too light
in texture and wear through. A heavier grade should be
used. The small duffel-bag is very convenient for ham-
mock and clothing, but generally the thing wanted will
be at the bottom of the bag! We took with us a number
of small cotton bags. As cotton is very absorbent, I had
them paraffined. Each bag was tagged and all were
placed in the large duffel-bag. The light fibre case de-
scribed above, made just the right size for mule pack,
divided by partitions, and covered with a duffel-bag,
would prove a great convenience.

The light steel boxes made in England for travellers
in India and Africa would prove of value in South

376 Appendix B

American exploration. They have the advantage of be-
ing insect and water proof and the disadvantage of being
expensive.

It would be well if the traveller measured each case
for personal equipment and computed the limit of weight
that it could carry and still float. By careful distribution
of light and heavy articles in the different containers, he
could be sure of his belongings floating if accidentally
thrown into the water.

It is not always possible to get comfortable native
saddles. They are all constructed on heavy lines with
thick padding which becomes water-soaked in the rainy
season. A United States military saddle, with Whitman
or McClellan tree, would be a positive luxury. Neither
of them is padded, so would be the correct thing for all
kinds of weather. The regulation army saddle-blanket
is also advised as a protection for the mule’s back. The
muleteer should wash the saddle-blanket often. For a
long mule-back trip through a game country, it would be
well to have a carbine boot on the saddle (United States
Army) and saddle-bags with canteen and cup. In a
large pack-train much time and labor are lost every
morning collecting the mules which strayed while graz-
ing. It would pay in the long run to feed a little corn
at a certain hour every morning in camp, always ringing
a bell or blowing a horn at the time. The mules would
get accustomed to receiving the feed and would come
to camp for it at the signal.

All the rope that came to my attention in South
America was three-strand hemp, a hard material, good
for standing rigging but not good for tackle or for use

Appendix B a7

aboard canoes. A four-ply bolt rope of best manilla,
made in New Bedford, Mass., should be taken. It is the
finest and most pliable line in the world, as any old
whaler will tell you. Get a sailor of the old school to
relay the coils before you go into the field so that the
rope will be ready for use. Five eighths to seven eighths
inch diameter is large enough. A few balls of marline
come in conveniently as also does heavy linen fish-line.

A small-sized duffel-bag should be provided for each
of the men as a container for hammock and net, spare
clothing, and mess-kit. A very small waterproof pouch
or bag should be furnished also for matches, tobacco, etc.

The men should be limited to one duffel-bag each.
These bags should be numbered consecutively. In fact,
every piece in the entire equipment should be thus num-
bered and a list kept in detail in a book.

The explorer should personally see that each of his
men has a hammock, net, and poncho; for the native, if
left unsupervised, will go into the field with only the
clothing he has on.

Foop.—Though South America is rich in food and
food possibilities, she has not solved the problem of
living economically on her frontiers. The prices asked
for food in the rubber districts we passed through were
amazing. Five milreis (one dollar and fifty cents) was
cheap for a chicken, and eggs at five hundred reis (fifteen
cents) apiece were a rarity. Sugar was bought at the
tate of one to two milreis a kilo—in a country where
sugar-cane grows luxuriantly. The main dependence is
the mandioc, or farina, as it is called. It is the bread of
the country and is served at every meal. The native puts

378 Appendix B

it on his meat and in his soup and mixes it with his rice
and beans. When he has nothing else he eats the farina,
as it is called, by the handful. It is seldom cooked.
The small mandioc tubers when boiled are very good and
are used instead of potatoes. Native beans are nutritious
and form one of the chief foods.

In the field the native cook wastes much time. Gen-
erally provided with an inadequate cooking equipment,
hours are spent cooking beans after the day’s work, and
then, of course, they are often only partially cooked. A
‘ kettle or aluminum Dutch oven should be taken along,
large enough to cook enough beans for both breakfast
and dinner. The beans should be cooked all night, a fire
kept burning for the purpose. It would only be neces-
sary then to warm the beans for breakfast and dinner,
the two South American meals.

For meat the rubber hunter and explorer depends
upon his rifle and fish-hook. The rivers are full of fish
which can readily be caught, and, in Brazil, the tapir,
capybara, paca, agouti, two or three varieties of deer,
and two varieties of wild pig can occasionally be shot;
and most of the monkeys are used for food. Turtles and
turtle eggs can be had in season and a great variety of
birds, some of them delicious in flavor and heavy in
meat. In the hot, moist climate fresh meat will not keep
and even salted meat has been known to spoil. For use
on the Roosevelt expedition I arranged a ration for five
men for one day packed in a tin box; the party which
went down the Duvida made each ration do for six men
for a day and a half, and in addition gave over half the
bread or hardtack to the camaradas. By placing the

Appendix B 379

Daity RATION FOR
Five MEN Sun. | Mon. | TuEs.| Web. | Taur.| Fri. | Sat.

Rice sioaersesia saan 16
Oatmeal hota ciatuniae ears nae 13 oi 13 13

POAGS s sieti- wares wees 100 | 10
pees SSA aoe 18 . on "te pe 98 oa es

ingersnaps......... anes 21 fee 2 ae Ps: “21
Dehydrated potatoes..| 11 II II I i II Hi si
Dehydrated onions...] 5 5 5 5 5 a ee
Erbswurst........... Ae 8 ees 8 eae |e 8
Evaporated soups....]| 6 |... 6 || eas see ese ~e
Baked beans......... Pe eee (aa 25 |... 25
poetics milk...... 17 17 17 17 17 17 17

COM 6 6: esse easete< Sate 44
Roast beef........... ee 5634 hess sss bs = "
Braised beef......... tn er 56 |]... 56
Corned beef......... see vr nee 70 pia
Ox tongue. .......... oe ng za ee 78 Bea
Curry and chicken....| ... ai sae Pe or 7134
Boned chicken....... 61 ane $4 ees
Fruits: evaporated

cberries.......--..- re 5 si 5 5 aie 5
Figs: oncxewwuoeelsa ge 20 sae 20 a sae ike ets
oe tes: Susie Bes Set MCAS ate ‘ aie ia dhs 16 oe

MPa wae obeyed nvee 32 32 32 32 32 32 32
Coffee.........000005 10%4| 1034) 10%| 1034] 10%] 103% 10%
OAs canz cweuaw aire ean 5%| 534) 5%| 5%! 5%4| 54) 5%
Salty ciicis capone satrave seis 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
Sweet chocolate. ..... Hae ae ce 16 ars

EacH BOX ALSO CONTAINED

Muslin, one yard. .... I I I I I 1 I
Matches, boxes....... 2 2 2 2 2 2
Soap, one cake....... I I I I I I I

Above weights of food are net in avoirdupois ounces. Each complete
ration with its tin container weighed nearly twenty-seven pounds. The
five pounds over net weight of daily ration was taken up in tin neces-
sary for protection of food. The weight of component parts of daily
tration had to be governed to some extent by the size of the commercial
package in which the food could be purchased on short notice. Austin,
Nichols & Co., of New York, who supplied the food stores for my
polar expedition, worked day and night to complete the packing of the
rations on time.

380 Appendix B

day’s allowance of bread in this same box, it was light-
ened sufficiently to float if dropped into water. There
were seven variations in the arrangement of food in
these boxes and they were numbered from 1 to 7, so that
a different box could be used every day of the week.
In addition to the food, each box contained a cake of
soap, a piece of cheese-cloth, two boxes of matches, and
a box of table salt. These tin boxes were lacquered to
protect from rust and enclosed in wooden cases for trans-
portation. A number in large type was printed on each.
No. 1 was cased separately; Nos. 2 and 3, 4 and 5, 6 and
7 were cased together. For canoe travel the idea was to
take these wooden cases off. I did not have an opportu-
nity personally to experience the management of these
food cases. We had sent them all ahead by pack-train
for the explorers of the Divida River. The exploration
of the Papagaio was decided upon during the march
over the plateau of Matto Grosso and was accomplished
with dependence upon native food only.

The food cases described above were used on Colonel
Roosevelt’s descent of the Rio da Duvida and also by the
party who journeyed down the Gy-Parana and Madeira
Rivers. Leo Miller, the naturalist, who was a member
of the last-named party, arrived in Manaos, Brazil, while
I was there and, in answer to my question, told me that
the food served admirably and was good, but that the
native cooks had a habit of opening a number of cases
at a time to satisfy their personal desire for special deli-
cacies. Bacon was the article most sought for. Speak-
ing critically, for a strenuous piece of work like the
exploration of the Duvida, the food was somewhat bulky.

Appendix B 381

A ration arrangement such as I used on my sledge trips
North would have contained more nutritious elements
in a smaller space. We could have done without many
of the luxuries. But the exploration of the Divida had
not been contemplated and had no place in the itinerary
mapped out in New York. The change of plan and the
decision to explore the Divida River came about in Rio
Janeiro, long after our rations had been made out and
shipped.

“Matté,” the tea of Brazil and Paraguay, used in
most of the states of South America, should not be
forgotten. It is a valuable beverage. With it a native
can do a wonderful amount of work on little food. Upon
the tired traveller it has a very refreshing effect.

Doctor Peckolt, celebrated chemist of Rio de Janeiro,
has compared the analysis of matté with those of green
tea, black tea, and coffee and obtained the following
result:

IN 1,000 PARTS OF ros poe COFFEE Marts
Natural oil.......... 7.90 0.06 0.41 0.01
Chlorophyl..........} 22.20 18.14 13.66 62.00
Resitisc sa3.c ante tx cess 22.20 34.40 13.66 20.69
Tannin.....536sa02sa04% 178.09 128.80 16.39 12.28
Alkaloids

Sala \ Mtraeses 4.50 4.30 2.66 2.50
Extractive substances.| 464.00 390.00 270.67 238.83
Cellulose and fibres...} 175.80 283.20 178.83 180.00
ASHES( a), cess wae bese 85.60 25.61 25.61 38.11

Manner of preparation: The matté tea is prepared in the same
manner as the Indian tea, that is to say, by pouring upon it boiling
water during ten to fifteen minutes before using. To obtain a good
infusion five spoonfuls of matté are sufficient for a litre of water.

382 Appendix B

Some experiments have been made lately with the
use of matté in the German army, and probably it would
be a valuable beverage for the use of our own troops.
Two plates and a cup, knife, fork, and spoon should be
provided for each member of the party. The United
States Army mess-kit would serve admirably. Each
man’s mess-kit should be numbered to correspond with
the number on his duffel-bag.

An aluminum (for lightness) cooking outfit, or the
Dutch oven mentioned, with three or four kettles nested
within, a coffee pot or a teapot would suffice. The
necessary large spoons and forks for the cook, a small
meat grinder, and a half dozen skinning knives could all
be included in the fibre case. These outfits are usually
sold with the cups, plates, etc., for the table. As before
suggested, each member of the party should have his
own mess-kit. It should not be carried with the general
cooking outfit. By separating the eating equipments
thus, one of the problems of hygiene and cleanliness is
simplified.

RIFLES.—AMMUNITION.—A heavy rifle is not ad-
vised. The only animals that can be classed as dangerous
are the jaguar and white-jawed peccary, and a 30-30 or
44 calibre is heavy enough for such game. The 44-calibre
Winchester or Remington carbine is the arm generally
used throughout South America, and 44 calibre is the
only ammunition that one can depend upon securing in
the field. Every man has his own preference for an
arm. However, there is no need of carrying a nine or
ten pound weapon when a rifle weighing only from six
and three fourths to seven and one half pounds will do

Appendix B 383

all that is necessary. I, personally, prefer the small-calibre
rifle, as it can be used for birds also. The three-barrelled
gun, combining a double shotgun and a rifle, is an ex-
cellent weapon, and it is particularly valuable for the
collector of natural-history specimens. A new gun has
just come on the market which may prove valuable in
South America where there is such a variety of game,
a four-barrel gun, weighing only eight and one fourth
pounds. It has two shotgun barrels, one 30 to 44 calibre
rifle and the rib separating the shotgun barrels is bored
for a 22-calibre rifle cartridge. The latter is particularly
adapted for the large food birds, which a heavy rifle-
bullet might tear. Twenty-two-calibre ammunition is
also very light and the long 22 calibre exceedingly power-
ful. Unless in practice it proves too complicated, it would
seem to be a good arm for all-round use—sixteen to
twenty gauge is large enough for the shotgun barrels.
Too much emphasis cannot be placed upon the need of
being provided with good weapons. After the loss of all
our arms in the rapids we secured four poor, rusty rifles
which proved of no value. We lost three deer, a tapir,
and other game, and finally gave up the use of the rifles,
depending upon hook and line. A 25 or 30 calibre high-
power automatic pistol with six or seven inch barrel
would prove a valuable arm to carry always on the per-
son. It could be used for large game and yet would not
be too large for food birds. It is to be regretted that
there is nothing in the market of this character.

We had our rifle ammunition packed by the U. M. C.
Co. in zinc cases of one hundred rounds each, a metallic
strip with pull ring closing the two halves of the box.

384 Appendix B

Shot-cartridge, sixteen gauge, were packed the same way,
twenty-five to the box.

The explorer would do well always to have on his
person a compass, a light waterproof bag containing
matches, a waterproof box of salt, and a strong, light,
linen or silk fish-line with several hooks, a knife, and an
automatic at his belt, with several loaded magazines for
the latter in his pocket. Thus provided, if accidentally
lost for several days in the forest (which often happens
to the rubber hunters in Brazil), he will be provided with
the possibility of getting game and making himself shelter
and fire at night.

FisH.—For small fish like the pacu and piranha an
ordinary bass hook will do. For the latter, because of
its sharp teeth, a hook with a long shank and phosphor-
bronze leader is the best; the same character of leader is
best on the hook to be used for the big fish. A tarpon
hook will hold most of the great fish of the rivers. A
light rod and reel would be a convenience in catching
the pacu. We used to fish for the latter variety in the
quiet pools while allowing the canoe to drift, and always
saved some of the fish as bait for the big fellows. We
fished for the pacu as the native does, kneading a ball
of mandioc farina with water and placing it on the hook
as bait. I should not be surprised, though, if it were
possible, with carefully chosen flies, to catch some of the
fish that every once in a while we saw rise to the surface
and drag some luckless insect under.

CLoTHiInG.—Even the experienced traveller when go-
ing into a new field will commit the crime of carrying too
much luggage. Articles which he thought to be camp

Appendix B 385

necessities become camp nuisances which worry his men
and kill his mules. The lighter one can travel the better.
In the matter of clothing, before the actual wilderness is
reached the costume one would wear to business in New
York in summer is practical for most of South America,
except, of course, the high mountain regions, where a
warm wrap is necessary. A white or natural linen suit
is a very comfortable garment. A light blue unlined
serge is desirable as a change and for wear in rainy
weather.

Strange to relate, the South American seems to have
a fondness for stiff collars. Even in Corumba, the hot-
test place I have ever been in, the native does not think
he is dressed unless he wears one of these stiff abomina-
tions around his throat. A light negligee shirt with
interchangeable or attached soft collars is vastly pre-
ferable. In the frontier regions and along the rivers the
pajama seems to be the conventional garment for day as
well as night wear. Several such suits of light material
should be carried—the more ornamented and beautifully
colored the greater favor will they find along the way. A
light cravenetted mackintosh is necessary for occasional
cool evenings and as a protection against the rain. It
should have no cemented rubber seams to open up in the
warm, moist climate. Yachting oxfords and a light pair
of leather slippers complete the outfit for steamer travel.
For the field, two or three light woollen khaki-colored
shirts, made with two breast pockets with buttoned flaps,
two pairs of long khaki trousers, two pairs of riding
breeches, a khaki coat cut military fashion with four
pockets with buttoned flaps, two suits of pajamas, hand-

386 Appendix B

kerchiefs, socks, etc., would be necessary. The poncho
should extend to below the knees and should be provided
with a hood large enough to cover the helmet. It should
have no cemented seams; the material recently adopted
by the United States Army for ponchos seems to be the
best. For footgear the traveller needs two pairs of stout,
high hunting shoes, built on the moccasin form with soles,
Hobnails should be taken along to insert if the going is
over rocky places. It is also advisable to provide a pair
of very light leather slipper boots to reach to just under
the knee for wear in camp. They protect the legs and
ankles from insect stings and bites. The traveller who
enters tropical South America should protect his head
with a wide-brimmed soft felt hat with ventilated head-
band, or the best and lightest pith helmet that can be
secured, one large enough to shade the face and back
of neck. There should be a ventilating space all around
the head-band; the wider the space the better. These
helmets can be secured in Rio and Buenos Aires. Head-
nets with face plates of horsehair are the best protection
against small insect pests. They are generally made too
small and the purchaser should be careful to get one
large enough to go over his helmet and come down to
the breast. Several pairs of loose gloves rather long in
the wrist will be needed as protection against the flies,
piums and boroshudas which draw blood with every bite
and are numerous in many parts of South America. A
waterproof sun umbrella, with a jointed handle about six
feet long terminating in a point, would be a decided help
to the scientist at work in the field. A fine-meshed net
fitting around the edge of the umbrella would make it

Appendix B 387

insect proof. When folded it would not be bulky and its
weight would be negligible. Such an umbrella could also
be attached, with a special clamp, to the thwart of a
canoe and so prove a protection from both sun and rain.

There are little personal conveniences which some-
times grow into necessities. One of these in my own case
was a little electric flash-light taken for the purpose of
reading the verniers of a theodolite or sextant in star
observations. It was used every night and for many
purposes. As a matter of necessity, where insects are
numerous one turns to the protection of his hammock
and net immediately after the evening meal. It was at
such times that I found the electric lamp so helpful.
Reclining in the hammock, I held the stock of the light
under my left arm and with diary in my lap wrote up
my records for the day. I sometimes read by its soft,
steady light. One charge of battery, to my surprise,
lasted nearly a month. When forced to pick out a camp-
ing spot after dark, an experience which comes to every
traveller in the tropics in the rainy season, we found its
light very helpful. Neither rain nor wind could put it
out and the light could be directed wherever needed. The
charges should be calculated on the plan of one for every
three weeks. The acetylene lamp for camp illumination
is an advance over the kerosene lantern. It has been
found that for equal weight the carbide will give more
light than kerosene or candle. The carbide should be
put in small containers, for each time a box is opened
some of the contents turns into gas from contact with
the moist air.

Toors.—Three or four good axes, several bill-hooks,

388 Appendix B

a good hatchet with hammer head and nail-puller should
be in the tool kit. In addition, each man should be pro-
vided with a belt knife and a machete with sheath.
Collins makes the best machetes. His axes, too, are
excellent. The bill-hook, called foice in Brazil, is a most
valuable tool for clearing away small trees, vines, and
undergrowths. It is marvellous how quickly an experi-
enced hand can clear the ground in a forest with one of
these instruments. All of these tools should have handles
of second-growth American hickory of first quality; and
several extra handles should be taken along. The list
of tools should be completed with a small outfit of pliers,
tweezers, files, etc.—the character, of course, depending
upon the mechanical ability of the traveller and the
scientific instruments he has with him that might need
repairs.

Survey InstRUMENTS.—The choice of instruments
will depend largely upon the character of the work in-
tended. Ifa compass survey will suffice, there is nothing
better than the cavalry sketching board used in the United
States Army for reconnoissance. With a careful hand it
approaches the high degree of perfection attained by the
plane-table method. It is particularly adapted for river
survey and, after one gets accustomed to its use, it is
very simple. If the prismatic compass is preferred,
nothing smaller than two and one half inches in diameter
should be used. In the smaller sizes the magnet is not
powerful enough to move the dial quickly or accurately.

Several good pocket compasses must be provided.
They should all have good-sized needles with the north
end well marked and degrees engraved in metal. If the

Appendix B 389

floating dial is preferred it should be of aluminum and
nothing smaller than two and one half inches, for the
same reason as mentioned above regarding the prismatic
compass.

Expense should not be spared if it is necessary to
secure good compasses. Avoid paper dials and leather
cases which absorb moisture. The compass case should
allow taking apart for cleaning and drying.

The regular chronometer movement, because of its
delicacy, is out of the question for rough land or water
travel. We had with us a small-sized half-chronometer
movement recently brought out by the Waltham Com-
pany asa yacht chronometer. It gave a surprisingly even
rate under the most adverse conditions. I was sorry to
lose it in the rapids of the Papagaio when our canoes
went down.

The watches should be waterproof with strong cases,
and several should be taken. It would be well to have
a dozen cheap but good watches and the same number of
compasses for use around camp and for gifts or trade
along the line of travel. Money is of no value after one
leaves the settlements. I was surprised to find that many
of the rubber hunters were not provided with compasses,
and I listened to an American who told of having been
lost in the depths of the great forest where for days he
lived on monkey meat secured with his rifle until he found
his way to the river. He had no compass and could not
get one. I was sorry I had none to give; I had lost mine
in the rapids.

For the determination of latitude and longitude there
is nothing better than a small four or five inch theodolite

390 Appendix B

not over fifteen pounds in weight. It should have a good
prism eyepiece with an angle tube attached so it would
not be necessary to break one’s neck in reading high
altitudes. For days we travelled in the direction the sun
was going, with altitudes varying from 88° to 90°. Be-
cause of these high altitudes of the sun the sextant with
artificial horizon could not be used unless one depended
upon star observations altogether, an uncertain depend-
ence because of the many cloudy nights.

BaroMETERS.—The Goldsmith form of direct-read-
ing aneroid is the most accurate portable instrument and,
of course, should be compared with a standard mercurial
at the last weather-bureau station.

THERMOMETERS.—A swing thermometer, with wet
and dry bulbs for determination of the amount of mois-
ture in the air, and the maximum and minimum ther-
mometer of the signal-service or weather-bureau type
should be provided, with a case to protect them from
injury.

A tape measure with metric scale of measurements
on one side and feet and inches on the other is most
important. Two small, light waterproof cases could be
constructed and packed with scientific instruments, data,
and spare clothing and yet not exceed the weight limit
of flotation. In transit by pack-train these two cases
would form but one mule load.

PHOTOGRAPHIC.—From the experience gained in sev-
eral fields of exploration it seems to me that the voyager
should limit himself to one small-sized camera, which he
can always have with him, and then carry a duplicate of
it, soldered in tin, in the baggage. The duplicate need

Appendix B 391

not be equipped with as expensive a lens and shutter as
the camera carried for work; 3144x 4% is a good size.
Nothing larger than 314x 5% is advised. We carried
the 3A special Kodak and found it a light, strong, and
effective instrument. It seems to me that the ideal form
of instrument would be one with a front board large
enough to contain an adapter fitted for three lenses. For
the 344 x44:

ONE MENG shin nemiene wean 4 or 4% focus
ONC 1M i wceweerow se aueraan ek 6 or 7 focus
One lens telephoto or telecentric..9 to 12 focus

The camera should be made of metal and fitted with
focal-plane shutter and direct view-finder.

A sole-leather case with shoulder-strap should con-
tain the camera and lenses, with an extra roll of films, all
within instant reach, so that a lens could be changed
without any loss of time.

Plates, of course, are the best, but their weight and
frailty, with difficulty of handling, rule them out of the
question. The roll film is the best, as the film pack sticks
together and the stubs pull off in the moist, hot climate.
The films should be purchased in rolls of six exposures,
each roll in a tin, the cover sealed with surgical tape.
Twelve of these tubes should be soldered in a tin box. In
places where the air is charged with moisture a roll of
films should not be left in a camera over twenty-four
hours.

Tank development is best for the field. The tanks
provided for developing by the Kodak Company are best

392 Appendix B

for fixing also. A nest of tanks would be a convenience;
one tank should be kept separate for the fixing-bath. As
suggested in the Kodak circular, for tropical develop-
ment a large-size tank can be used for holding the freez-
ing mixture of hypo. This same tank would become the
fixing tank after development. In the rainy season it is
a difficult matter to dry films. Development in the field,
with washing water at 80° F., is a patience-trying opera-
tion. It has occurred to me that a small air-pump with a
supply of chloride of calcium in small tubes might solve
the problem of preserving films in the tropics. The air-
pump and supply of chloride of calcium would not be as
heavy or bulky as the tanks and powders needed for de-
velopment. By means of the air-pump the films could be
sealed in tin tubes free from moisture and kept thus until
arrival at home or at a city where the air was fairly dry
and cold water for washing could be had.

While I cordially agree with most of the views ex-
pressed by Mr. Fiala, there are some as to which I dis-
agree; for instance, we came very strongly to the
conclusion, in descending the Duvida, where bulk was of
great consequence, that the films should be in rolls of
ten or twelve exposures. I doubt whether the four-barrel
gun would be practical; but this is a matter of personal
taste.

APPENDIX C

MY LETTER OF MAY I TO GENERAL
LAURO MULLER

THE first report on the expedition, made by me im-
mediately after my arrival at Manaos, and published in
Rio Janeiro upon its receipt, is as follows:

May Ist, 1914.
To His Excettency Tue Minister oF
ForEeIcN AFFAIRS,
RIO-DE-J ANEIRO.
My pear GENERAL Lauro MuLLeER:

I wish first to express my profound acknowledgments
to you personally and to the other members of the
Brazilian Government whose generous courtesy alone
rendered possible the ‘Expedicao Scientifica Roosevelt-
Rondon. I wish also to express my high admiration and
regard for Colonel Rondon and his associates who have
been my colleagues in this work of exploration. In the
third place I wish to point out that what we have just
done was rendered possible only by the hard and perilous
labor of the Brazilian Telegraphic Commission in the
unexplored western wilderness of Matto Grosso during
the last seven yéars. We have had a hard and somewhat
dangerous but very successful trip. No less than six

393

304 Appendix C

weeks were spent in slowly and with peril and exhausting
labor forcing our way down through what seemed a
literally endless succession of rapids and cataracts. For
forty-eight days we saw no human being. In pa ing
these rapids we lost five of the seven canoes with which
we started and had to build others. One of our best men
lost his life in the rapids. Under the strain one of the
men went completely bad, shirked all his work, stole his
comrades’ food and when punished by the sergeant he
with cold-blooded deliberation murdered the sergeant and
fled into the wilderness. Colonel Rondon’s dog running
ahead of him while hunting, was shot by two Indians;
by his death he in all probability saved the life of his
master. We have put on the map a river about 1500
kilometres in length running from just south of the 13th
degree to north of the 5th degree and the biggest affluent
of the Madeira. Until now its upper course has been
utterly unknown to every one, and its lower course al-
though known for years to the rubber men utterly un-
known to all cartographers. Its source is between the
12th and 13th parallels of latitude south, and between
longitude 59 degrees and longitude 60 degrees west from
Greenwich. We embarked on it about at latitude 12
degrees 1 minute south and longitude 60 degrees 18 west.
After that its entire course was between the 60th and
61st degrees of longitude approaching the latter most
closely about in latitude 8 degrees 15 minutes. The first
rapids were at Navaité in 11 degrees 44 minutes and after
that they were continuous and very difficult and danger-
ous until the rapids named after the murdered sergeant
Paishon in 11 degrees 12 minutes. At 11 degrees 23

Appendix C 395

minutes the river received the Rio Kermit from the left.
At 11 degrees 22 minutes the Marciano Avila entered it
from the right. At 11 degrees 18 minutes the Taunay
« .ered from the left. At 10 degrees 58 minutes the
Cardozo entered from the right. At 10 degrees 24 min-
utes we encountered the first rubber man. The Rio
Branco entered from the left at 9 degrees 38 minutes.
We camped at 8 degrees 49 minutes or approximately
the boundary line between Matto Grosso and Amazonas.
The confluence with.the upper Aripuanan, which entered
from the right, was in 7 degrees 34 minutes. The mouth
where it entered the Madeira was in about 5 degrees 30
minutes. The stream we have followed down: is that
which rises farthest away from the mouth and its general
course is almost due north:

My dear Sir, I thank you from my heart for the
chance to take part in this great work of exploration.

With high regard and respect, believe me

Very sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

INDEX

INDEX

“African Game Trails,” 22

Agassiz, 355

Agouti, 173, 346

Alencarliense, Lieutenant, 270

Alligator, 80

Alva, Duke of, Appendix B, 370

Amarante, Lieutenant, 270, 2 27

Amazon, 7, 290, 343, 349

Amazonas, Boundary Commis-
sion of, 326; 350

Ameghino, Doctor, 28; Appendix
A, 365

American Museum of Natural
History, 2, 8, 67, 146, 188

Amilcar, Captain, 158, 171, 189,
208, 220, 226, 234, 246, 271;
loss of his notes and instru-
ae 341; arrives at Manaos,

er mnen Appendix B, 382,

Anaconda, 54, 228

Ananas River, 187, 238, 247, 319;
note, 327

Andes, 6

André, 310

Aneroid, 268, 281, 322

Animals, wild, curious local
change in habits of, 29; igno-

rance of some hunters con-
cerning, 87

Ant-eater, giant, tamandua ban-
deira, 68, 75

Ant-hills, giant, 91, 191, 227

Ants, 164, 251, 306; poisonous,
55, 91, 192; fire- -ants, 108, 114,
118, 120, i21, 150; foraging,
166-168, 233, 288; "leaf-carry-
ing, 191, 256, 288, 306; giant,
263, 272

Ants, socks and mosquito-net-
ting eaten by, 164, 256, 306

Argentina, 2

Argentine, 9, 26, 32

Aripuanan, the, 284, 285, 298,
325-327, 338-341, 350

Armadillos, 90, 91, 173, 205

Arms, 5, 67, 248; Fox, 67;
Springfield rifle, 81, 93; Liiger,
93, 234; Winchester, '84, 211,
332; Appendix B, 369, 382, 383

Arneberg, Mr., 31

Arrows, 279

Asuncion, 8; leave, 39; 44, 65

Automobile, a querulous travel-
ler in the, 213

Ayolas, the Spanish explorer, 60

Baggage, rearrangement of, 214;
cutting down of, 247; further
reduction of, 281; final reduc-
tion of, 303; personal, Appen-
dix B, 375, 376

Balsa, or ferry, 210, 219

Bandeira, the, 254

Barbados, sail for, 347

Barboso, Senhor, 331

Barilloche, 36

Barometers, Appendix B, 390

Barros, Senhor de, 66, 69

Bates, H. W., 120, 345; Appen-
dix A, 357

Bats, 140; blood-sucking, 172,
173, 239, 240

Bedding, "Appendix B, 368

Bees, 211, 252, 257, 259, 263,
264

Belén (formerly Para), 344-347;
zoological gardens at, 347

Benedetto, 148, 152, 153

399

400

Beriberi, 159, 203, 226, 319 _

Birds, songs of, 33, 34, 288; bien-
tevido, 35; tyrant flycatchers,
35-37; advertising coloration
of, 37; habits of, 37; survival
factors in species of, 38; wa-
ter-fowl, 39, 50, 59, 66, 70,
322; difference in bird fauna,
70; “Jesus Christ,” 74; wealth
of bird life, 74; nests of, 74,
344; need for work of careful
observer of, 74, 112; ants at-
tack nestling, 92; extraordi-
nary collection of, 92-94;
oven-birds, 95; owl, 99, 162,
173; Guan, 101; sickle-billed
humming, 108; egrets, 110;
toucans, 111, 165, 298; finfoots,
112, herons, 112; troupials,
121; opportunity for study of,
124; parakeets, 124; screamers,
125; curassows, 126, 305;
snake, 130; cormorants, 130;
spurred lapwing, 130; con-
trasts in habits between closely
allied species of, 130, 131;
manakin, 137; 149; whippoor-
will, 168; honey-creeper, 169;
nunlets, 169; waxbill, 170;
trogons, 179; false bell-bird,
179; woodpecker, 205, 253;
some new, 217; breeding sea-
son of, 218; macaws, 218; old
and new kinds of, 218; valu-
able addition to collection of,
220; unfamiliar, 234, 235; sa-
riema, 236; cotinga, 253; sixty
new, 266; four new species of,
278; ant-thrush, 294, 295; 298,
322; jaci-tinga, 324; trum-
peter, 331; few water, 337;
hoatzin, archaic type of, 343

Boats, house, 102; their use as
stores, 102

Bonofacio, José, station of, 134,
243-246; provisions left at, 247

Books, 162, 228, 229, 247, 267;
of travel, Appendix A, 356,

Booth Line, 344

Index

Borah, Jake, 119

Brazil, invitation of Government
of, 2; arrival at boundary of,
49, 50; intellectual and spirit-
ual liberty of, 51; healthiness
of inland region of, 103; in-
valuable reports of explora-
tions published by Govern-
ment of, 135; educational
needs of, 157; silver-mounted
saddle and bridle presented
to Colonel Roosevelt by Gov-
ernment of, 170; suggestion to
combine the two expeditions
made by Government of, 188;
first explorers of, 189; houses
of laborers in, 196; healthy
region for settlement offered
by high interior of western,
216; change of family names
in, 291; courtesy of peasants
of, 325; “last frontier” still ex-
ists in, 333; development of,
334; Government of, orders
Davida River to be named
Rio Roosevelt, 341; achieve-
ments of Government of, 348,
349; Colonel Rondon’s report
of Savage Landor to Govern-
ment of, Appendix A, note,
359-361

baw, Doctor Vital, 14-23, 42,

Brazil Land and Cattle Com-
pany, headquarters of, 125-127

Bridge, an Indian, 255

Bronx Zoo, 346

Bayer, James, 177; Appendix A,

Buenos Aires, 9, 32

Bullets, umbrella-pointed, 141
Bullock-train, 220

Butterflies, 168, 235

Burity River, camp at, 210-212
Burton, 355

Caboclos, 106, 193, 243
Caetano, Lieutenant, 188
Caeté flags, 108

Index

Cajazeira, Doctor, 171, 189, 208,
282, 291, 313, 317, 321, 328;
good-by to, 345

Camaradas, 106; skilful riding
of, 107; 117-119, 139; wilder-
ness work disliked by, 159;
250, 260, 268, 282; discourage-
ment of, 307; tragedy among
the, 311-317; fever among,
318; share food with, 323; lose
strength, 328; ill from over-
ae 334; parting gift to,

Camp chairs and table, Appen-
dix B, 368

Campos Novos, 233-235

Canja, 170, 235

Canoes, 138; Canadian, 138, 170;
247, 249; portaging the, 260,
261, 267, 268; loss of two, 269;
building new, 270-273; 274;
lose another, 280; 281; build
two more, 287; 301-304; rocks
break, 306; 307-310, 321-323,
331; obtain boat to replace,
337; 338; two months in, 339;
last trip in, 342; Appendix B,
368, 370-373

Canuma River, 262, 298, 338

Capricorn, Tropic of, 40

Capybaras, or tapirs, 80-82, 85,
86, 88-90, 111, 117

Cardozo, Captain, 159

Caripe, Senhor, 337; his stories
of rubber-workers, 338; 340,

342

“Carregadores,” 191, 256, 288

Cartucho, the puppy, 192

Carvings, rock, 300

“Cashada,” the Brazilian name
for peccary, 146, 148

Castanho, the, 325-327, 340

Cataracts, 319

Catfish, 320

Cattle, 72; jaguars attack, 86;
branding of, 95, 96; regions
of extraordinary possibilities
for raising, 124, 126, 156

Caymans, 40, 44, 54, 59; jacarés,
usual name for, 66, 67; 85; in-

4O1

teresting incident of trucu-
lence of, 88, 89; astonishing
tameness of, 113, 321

Centiped, 311

Chaco, the, 32, 40, 41

Chapadao, 216, 235, 237, 239, 348

Chapman, Frank, 2, 3

Chasm, a, 308

Cherrie, George K., 3-5, 10, 40,
63, 99, 102, 103, 153; good citi-
zenship of, 156, 157; good
work done by, 166; 173; widely
varied experiences of, 184,
185; 186, 205, 208, 210, 214,
217, 218; interesting tales told
by, 227, 228; 234, 240, 237, 248,
253, 255, 263, 266, 278, 280-
282; home life of, 294; helpful-
ness of, 305, 306; 310, 313, 317,
319, 321, 328, 329, 334, 339;
piranha attacks, 341; friend-
ship inspired by, 342; 347, 357

Cherrie River, 302

Chile, 9

Cicadas, 65, 66

Climate, difficulties of working
in a damp, 207

Clothing, Appendix B, 369, 370,
377, 384-386

Coati, 49, 114, 173

Coimbra, 60, 61

Coloration, advertising, of birds,
36, 37, 295; theories concern-
ing concealing, 100; conceal-
ing, not universal among big
game, 122, 123, 127-129; cor-
al-snake possesses revealing,
255; examples of protective,
256, 264

Compass, necessity for a, 163,
180; Appendix B, 388, 389

Concepcion, 41, 42, 44, 46; visit
to barracks at, 47; breakfast
at City Hall at, 48

Cooking, 160; equipment for,
Appendix B, 378, 382

Correa, Antonio, 279, 280, 296,
299, 302, 325 ;

Corumba, 9, 62-65; arrival at,
97; 123, 337

402

Cougar, of puma, 27-29; man
attacked by, 30-32, 55; 127,
128; deer preyed on by, 180

Craveiro, Pedrinho, 298, 313

Crops, 40, 335

Cruz, Doctor, 42

Cuyaba, River, 101; party leaves
the, 113; 123

Da Cunha, Commander, 88

Dance, an Indian, 206, 207;
Nhambiquara, 224, 241

Darwin, his “Voyage of the
Beagle,” 356; 360, 367

Deer, bush, 115, 141, 155; marsh,
78, 100; revealing coloration
of, 122; pampas, 180, 182;
whitetail, 115, 116, 122

Dipper, the, 329

Diseases, 203, 204

Ditmars, R. L., 19, 21

Dogs, 67, 76, 79-83, 109, 110, 117,
118; jaguar hunt exhausts,
119; need for good, 119;
worthlessness of the, 140; cus-
tom of gelding hunting, 155,
156; heat tries, 219

Ducks, muscovy, 50; tree, 125

Duffel-bags, Appendix B, 377

Easter Sunday, 323

Education, need of, 156, 157
Egan, Maurice Francis, 1
ees flashlight, Appendix B,

Enoerey, the god, 209
Equipment, 5, 6, 214, 215; com-
pass a necessary part of, 163,
180; for trip down unknown
river, 247; blankets a necessity
of, 306; Colonel Roosevelt’s
suggestion for, Appendix B,
368-370; Fiala’s suggestion for,
Appendix B, 370-392
Evangalista, Miguel, 242, 243
Expedition, the origin of, 1;
members of, 3-5; ground to be
covered by, 6-9; scientific
character of, 26; arrival of
Brazilian members of, 51-53;
division of the, 170, 171; pri-

Index

mary purpose of, 188; official
title of, 188; individual work
done by members of, 189; be-
gin difficult part of, 208; final
division of belongings and
members of, 246, 247; perilous
state of, 315; a good doctor
essential on, 318; ill health of
members of, 323; a red-letter
day for, 324; no longer fear
of disaster to, 328; complete
zoological success of, 347;
most important work done by,
348

Explorers, dangers to pioneer,
55, 159, 176-178; work of Bra-
zilian, 217; disasters to parties
of, 309; much work in South
America for, Appendix A, 353-
358; need for accuracy and
common sense in writings of,
359-362; note, 361; useful ar-
ticles which should always be
carried by, 384

Farrabee, Professor, 177, 347,
Appendix A, 357

Fauna, 8; pleistocene, 27; bird,
70; mammalian, 70; South
America rich in bird, 112; an
interesting, 218; extinct South
American, Appendix A, 366

Fazendas, 162

Fazendeiros, 138, 148

Ferry, the, 194

Fiala, Anthony, 4, 5, 9; outfit as-
sembled by, 64; takes moving
picture, 111; efficiency of, 165;
170, 184, 189, 208; loses bag-
gage and provisions, 221; ra-
tions chosen by, 295; goes
home, 341; his suggestions for
equipment and provisions, Ap-
pendix B, 369-392

Fish, best hooks and rods for,
Appendix B, 384

Fishing stick, 280

Flies, horse, 130, 259; pium, 190,
259; polvora, 259; boroshuda,
259; berni, 151, 229

Index

Floating islands, 345
Tyee 259, Appendix B,

Flying-fish, 293

Food, 186; oxen for, 209, 239;
248; monkeys as, 255; econo-
mizing, 272; palm-tops used
for, 281, 295, 296; shortage of,
295; country furnishes scant
supply of, 295, 296; toucan and
parrots as, 299; high prices
for, 331; vegetables and fruits
raised by settles for, 332; Ap-
pendix B, 377; itemized list
of, 379-381

Football, extraordinary game of,
197-199

Forage, scarcity of, 215, 229, 231

Forests, 7, 59, 70, 136; multitudes
of insects inhabit, 151; 179,
180; absolute necessity for a
compass in, 163, 180; 216, 252;
difficulty of hunting in, 266;
272, 305

Fort Bourbon, 57

Franca, the cook, ghostly belief
of, 314

Franco, Ricardo, 189, 190, 219

Frogs, peculiar cries of, 210, 236

Fungi, 168

Game, big, inadequate knowledge
of life histories of, 119, 120

Gauchos, 95, 96

Geographer, work of field, in
South America, Appendix A,
353, 354

Geological structure of land, 237

Goff, Johnny, 119

Gopher rat, 245, 246

Graves, forlorn, 203, 210, 231

Guaporé, the, 189

Guarany, 44-46

Guiana, 347

Gy-Parana, the, 134, 135; descent
of the, 158; boat, men, and
provisions lost ascending the,
159; 247, 270, 271, 348

Hammocks, Appendix B, 368,
374

403

Harper, Frank, 4, 5, 166; speci-
mens and unnecessary bag-
gage returned to New York
in care of, 171

Haseman, John D., 177, Appen-
dix A, 359-362; theories of,
363-367

Headball, 198, 199, 204

Head-nets, 212, 220, 232

Herford, Oliver, nonsense
rhymes of, 197

Hoehne, the botanist, 172

Honey, 263

Honey-creeper, 237

Horses, 69, 76, curious relations
of tapirs and, 147

Houses, native, 101, 132, 220,
233, 244

Huatsui, camp at, 212

Hudson, Mr., author of “Natu-
ralist on the Plata,” 29, 34, 87;
Appendix A, 355

Humboldt, 356

Hunters, native, 78; one chris-
tened “Nips,” 78; curious ig-
norance regarding habits of
animals of native and other,
86; riding costume of, 149;
lack of sense of direction of,
180

Huquen, Marcelino, 31

Huxley, 360, 367

tae peeiee nests plundered by,

Iguanas, 228

Indian mounds, 105

Indians, 49; civilization of tribes
of, 52; fishing village of, 105;
governmental treatment of the,
157; wages paid the, 193;
Colonel Rondon’s treatment of
the, 193; telegraph-line pa-
trolled by, 194; huts of, 244;
dog killed by, 279, 280; 286,
287

Insects, 40, 41; man’s worst ani-
mal foes, 41, 42; a menace to
wilderness travel, 55; 69, 101;
perpetuation of species of,

404

121; atrocious suffering caused
by, 151; 175, 176; many queer,
183; 193, 211, 212; torments
from, 232; danger from wild
animals less than from, 232,
233; 259, 260, 262, 268, 272, 282,
306; festering wounds caused
by bites of, 311; 330. See
Mosquitoes, Flies, Wasps,
' Ants. .
“Instituto serum-thérapico,” 14
Irala, the Spanish explorer, 60
Itacoatiara, 320

Jabiru storks, 50, 66, 70, 93, 94;
Fiala takes a moving picture
of, 111; 155

Jacanas, 74

Jacaré-tinga. See Caymans.

Jacu, 263, 265, 269

Jacyparana, the, 271

Jaguar, 27, 32, 33, 55; hunt for,
79-85; cattle preyed on by, 85,
86; spears and rifles used in
hunting, 105; unsuccessful
hunt for, 117-119; melanism
common among, 127; trees
estuge of, 142; kills bullock,

Jaguarundi, 127

Jararaca, 12, 13, 21, 23; mus-
surama fights, 24-26; man bit-
ten by, 54; 137; stories of, 227

Jesuits, missions of the, 44

‘Joao, Kermit’s helmsman, 275-
277, 291

Johnston, Sir Harry, 42

Juina,.the, 229

Julio, 250, 298; story of tragedy
caused by, 311-317

Jungle, man strayed in, 163

Juruena, the, 134, 135, 187, 208,
216; arrival at, 219; 348

Kipling, poems of, 203

Lambert, Doctor Alexander, 259

Lamps, Appendix B, 387

Landor, Savage, 179; Colonel
Rondon’s scathing review of,
note, Appendix A, 359-361

Index

Tateuages, Guarany, 44-46; 56,
La er Museum, 32; Appendix

“Las Palmeiras,” visit to ranch
of, 66, 69; cattle at, 72; de-
lightful stay at, 90; leave, 112

“Last Frontier,” in Brazil, 333

Lauriadé, Lieutenant, 182, 208,
221, 340

Lecture engagements, 2, 9

Lobo, 279

Long Island, spring on, 173, 329

Lowell, 177

— steersman, 250, 263, 279,

Lyra, Lieutenant Joo, 52, 132,
158, 171, 184, 187, 189, 208, 210,
235, 247, 250, 259, 260, 262,
266-272, 275, 279, 282, 283, 291,
296, 297, 300, 302, 304-308, 310,
311, 313, 317, 321, 328, 329, 335,
341, 345

Macario, 302
MacGahan, Januarius Aloysius,

1
Machetes, 118, 149, 179; falcéns,
Brazilian name for, 320
Mackenzie, Murdo, 125
Madeira, the, 133-135, 189, 238,
247, 271, 327, 342, 343, 350
Madeira-Marmoré Railroad, 242
Madeirainha River, 335-338
sos aaa Captain Amilcar de,

Mammals, 70; variety in fecun-
dity of different families of,
76; 99, 112, 166; noteworthy
collection of, 343

Manaos, 247, 338, 341-346

Mandioc, 193

Mantes, Praying, 192

Marino, Lieutenant, 219

Marques, Dom Joao, the young-
er, 103, 105; his gift to Colonel
Roosevelt, 113

Marques, Senhor Joao da Costa,
103; noteworthy family of, 105

Marsh, difficult swim across, 118

Index

Marsh plants, 108, 118
woe 46, 55, 186; Appendix B,

Matto Grosso, 9, 104; largest
ranch-house in, 113; 132, 134;
future possibilities of interior
of, 156, 157; beginnings of
province of, 189; 350

McLean, ——, 126

Meat, Appendix B, 378, 379

Medicines, Appendix B, 369

Mello Filho, Lieutenant Joaquin,
52, 182, 208, 234, 246

Merriam, Hart, 84

Mess-kit, Appendix B, 382

Mice, new varieties of, 112

Miller, Leo E., 3, 5, 9, 40, 43,
63-65, 73, 98, 99, 103; good
work done by, 166; 167-169,
173, 175, 186, 188, 205, 208, 210,
214, 218; interesting tales told
by, 228; 234, 236, 240, 245, 246,
249, 341; rejoins party, 343;
345-347; Appendix A, 357, 380

Monkeys, black howler, 76, 108;
114, 116; nocturnal, 121; 125,
245, 253; flesh of, good eating,
255, 305; fish eats, 320; 346

Montes, Captain Vicente, 32

Montevideo, 14

Moreno, Doctor Francisco P.,
extraordinary discoveries of,
27, 28; puma attacks, 29-32;
Appendix A, 366

Mosquito-biers, 232

Mosquitoes, 103, 114, 118, 124;
few, 162; absence of, 187; 233,
330

Motors, Appendix B, 373

Motor-trucks, 182, 186

Mountains, 302, 304

Mules, pack, 165, 174; 175, 186;
weather exhausts, 204; loads
for the, 214; weakness of, 214,
215; abandoned, 214, 231; pas-
turage for, 232, 233; loads for,
Appendix B, 374

Miiller, General Lauro, 8, 51,
188, 286; Colonel Roosevelt’s
letter to, Appendix B, 393-395

405

Mundurucu Indians, 338

Museums, trained observers
should be sent into wilderness
by, 166

Music, 145, 206, 224, 225, 241

Mussurama, 15, 18-21; jararaca
fights, 24-26

Natives, 138

Naturalists, outdoor, possibilities
for useful work of, 74, 75, 93,
94; slight experience of big
game possessed by most, 119,
120; ideal place for work of
field, 124; museums should
send into the
trained, 166

Navaité Rapids, 259-261

ne communal, 124; troupials’,

Nhambiquara Indians, 200; land
of the, 208; 211; Colonel Ron-
don’s just treatment of the,
222; no wilder savages. than
the, 222; life and habits of,
222-224; improvised dance of
the, 224; dog stolen by, 225; a
visit from three, 229; former
hostility of, 230; an encamp-
ment of, 240; their lack of
clothing, 241; ornaments of,
244; probable strain of negro
blood in, 244; archery of, 246;
258; the Navaité, a sub-tribe
of the, 259

“Nips,” a native hunter, 78

North, the call of the, 329

Nunlet, 169

Nuts, Brazil, 270, 300; crop of,
fails, 335

Nuts, unwholesome, 324

Nyoac, the river boat, 98

Ocelot, 127, 128
Oliveira, Doctor Euzebio de, the
geologist, 52, 188, 208, 234, 237

wilderness

_ Onelli, Doctor, 32

Opossum, 99, 173
Orchids, 137, 155, 163; sobralia,
267

406

Orioles, wasps surround nests
of, 102

Ornithology, Sclater and Hud-
son’s, 36

Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 3

Otter, 253

Outfit for South American wil-
derness, Appendix B, 368-392

Outlook, The, 28

Overland trip begun, 165

Om Moses, the tame, 99, 162,

Ox-carts, 96, 97

Oxen, pack, 165; difficulty in
loading, 174; clothes eaten by,
199; 205, 220; secure some
fresh, 239; loads for, Appen-
dix B, 374

Paca, 253, 266

Pacu, 283

Paddlers, 247, 250

Paixio (Paishon), 312; Julio
kills, 313; burial of, 316; 394

Paleontological knowledge, our
present, 301, 365

Palms, nacury, 83; Dr. Rod-
riguez’s book on, 113; fig-trees
kill, 149; wawasa, 150, 163;
burity, 150, 253, 265; 179; baca-
ba, 242, 253; boritana, 251;
accashy, 265

“Pantanals,” or swamps, 73

Paolistas, the, 217, 334

Papyrus swamps, 138, 140

Para, 344-347

Paraguay, 40; language and
people of, 44-46; development
ahead of, 46; military service
introduced in, 47, 48

Paraguay, the, 7-9, 39 ef seq.;
early knowledge of, 57; Amer-
ican flag first seen on the
upper, 60; 98; renewed ascent
of, 121; junction of Sao Lou-
renco and, 123; 189, 337

Parana, 32, 34

Parecis, Antonio, 148, 152-154,
250, 266, 279, 283

Index

Parecis Indians, 193, 196, 197;
extraordinary game of football
played by, 197-199; Colonel
Rondon holds a council with
the, 200; settlement of, 201-
203; presents for the, 206;
dance of the, 206, 207; ferry
run by, 210

Parecis plateau, 179

Park, Mungo, 189

Patagonia, 27

“Pateran,” 258

Peccary, white-lipped, 79, 92, 109,
117, 146, 148, 152-155, 346

Femelle Doctor, Appendix B,

Peonage, 156

Peons, 50, 69, 74

Peres, Colonel Telles, 310

Pescada, 323

Photog ee supplies, Appendix

Pineapples, 187; wild, 299

Pioneers, 332-334

Pipes, natives dance to, 206

Piraiba, 320, 321

Piranha, or cannibal fish, 42-44;
stories of attacks by, 52-54;
Miller’s study of, 64, 65; 88;
dogs’ tails bitten off by, 137;
288; flesh of, good eating, 300;
321-323; attack Cherrie, 341

Plan Alto, the, 123, 174; healthy
region of, 179-181; 182; singu-
ye topographical feature of,

Plantains, or pacovas, 179, 267

Portages, 257, 260, 261, 282, 301,
303, 304, 318, 319, 321, 323

Porto Campo, 136, 144, 145

Porto Martinho, 55

Positivists, the, 51

Pranchas, native trading-boats,
136, 164

Provisions, 6, 42, 160; tin cases
of, 170; loss of ferry-load of,
229; 247, 248; half supply of,
consumed, 297; Fiala’s sugges-
fous for, Appendix B, 377-

Index 407

Puma. See Cougar

Puma-skin helmet, 230

Pyrineus, Lieutenant, 53, 270,
271, 285, 297, 339-341

“Queixa,” the, 146
Quinine, 282

Rain, severe storm of, 110; be-
ginning of rainy season, 112,
113; forty-eight hour fall of,
116, 117; 179, 190, 203, 205;
difficulties of travelling in
rainy season, 221; 226, 227,
235, 236, 254, 291; end of
rainy season, 306; 330

Haney Paul, hounds used by,

Ramsey, 126

Ranches, 125, 161-166

Rapids, 164; a mishap in the, 221;
form serious obstacle, 257;
258, 262, 282, 331, 264-266, 268;
Broken Canoe, 269; 273-284,
292-297, 299-304; time spent in
going through, 306; note on,
307 ; 308-310, 318, 319, 321-324;
Panela, 331; Inferno, 335; In-
fernino, 337; Carupanan, 337;
last of the, 339

“Regional Volunteers,” 269

Regions, healthy, 195, 203; enter
wilder, 208; rich and fertile,
298, 299; beautiful, 322

Reinisch, Colonel Rondon’s taxi-
dermist, 113, 234

Religions, 5, 57-59; need for
churches of all, 58, 59; liberty
for all, 59

Rheas, ostriches, 180

Ribeiro, Miranda, 270

Rickard, Tex, 41, 46 .

Rifles, 5, 211, 234, 276; Appendix
B, 369, 382

Riis, Jacob, 27

Rio Branco, 331, 350

Rio Cardozo, 319, 327, 335

Rio de Janeiro, 8, 349

Rio Grande do Sul, 219

Rio Kermit, 283, 285, 349

Rio Marciano Avila, 349

Rio Negro, 343

Rio Papagaio, 186, 200, 208; Fi-
ala’s loss on, 221, 340

Rio Sacre, 190, 194

River of Doubt (Rio da Dt-
vida), 9, 135, 187; preparations
for descent of the, 246-248;
start down, 249; probable di-
rection of, 262; importance of
the, 284; possible course of,
284; formally christened Rio
Roosevelt, 286; conjectures as
to, 297; losses in rapids of,
307; junction of Rio Cardozo
and, 319; is put upon the map,
326, 327; length of the, 339,
342, 349; source of, 349

Rivers, 6, 7, 216; hazards of de-
scending unknown, 221, 309;
methods of crossing, 229; 235;
courses and outlets of, 237, 238

Robiliard, Mr., 344

Rodéo, or round-up, 105

Rodriguez, Doctor Barboso, 113

Rogaciano, Lieutenant, 117, 119

Rondon, Colonel Candido Mari-
ano da Silva, 8, 9, 51-55; out-
fit inspected by, 64; 66, 68;
characteristics of, 77; 79, 98,
114, 117, 119; explorations of,
132-135; 151-154; people of
Matto Grosso befriended by,
156; Indian service of Brazil
headed by, 157; Sepotuba
River explored and_ north-
western wilderness of Matto
Grosso opened by, 157; most
important exploring trip of,
158; 171, 181; his stories of
past experiences, 184, 187; 188-
190, 199 holds a_council with
the Indians, 200; Utiarity Falls
discovered by, 200; gives pres-
ents to the Indians, 206; 208,
214; work of, 217; friendship
of Nhambiquaras for, 222;
224, 225, 227, 230; early life
and education of, 243; 247,
250, 251, 262, 269; his eight

408

months’ exploration, 270; 279,
282, 283, 285; formally chris-
tens Rio Roosevelt, 286; 296,
299, 301, 302; trail cut by, 304;
305, 307, 308, 311, 313, 315;
his decision as to murderer,
316; 317, 321, 329; reads record
of party’s accomplishments,
341; good-by to, 344; 348; Ap-
pendix A, 357; charges made
against Mr. Savage Landor
by, 359-361
Roosevelt, Kermit, 4, 5, 55, 67,
68, 73, 75, 78, 79, 82-84, 93, 114,
117; speed and endurance of,
117-119; 157, 162, 173, 182,
189, 203, 208, 234, 240, 247,
249-251, 260, 263-269, 272, 275;
accident befalls, 276; 277, 279,
281-283; river called after,
285; 286, 290, 291, 296, 297, 299,
301, 302; his experience of
rope work, 303, 304; 305-308,
his bridge-building experience,
310; 311, 313; fever attacks,
317; 319, 324, 328, 329, 338,
339, Appendix B, 369
Roosevelt, Theodore, is invited
to attempt descent of unknown
river, 8; reception to, 46, 48;
Dom Joao’s gift to, 113; re-
ceives silver-mounted saddle
and bridle, 170; unknown river
formally christened for, 286;
injures his leg, 317; has an
attack of fever, 317; his illness
increases, 328, 329; quotation
from Colonel Rondon’s letter
to, Appendix A, note, 360; his
suggestions for outfits in
South American wilderness,
368-370, 392; his report to
General Lauro Miiller, 393-395
Rope, Appendix B, 376, 377
Rubber-gatherers, 217, 325-327;
act as guide, 330; homes of,
331-333; work of, in opening
wilderness, 334; 335; hard
lives of, 336; adventures of,
- 338; 350

Index

Saddles, Appendix B, 376

Salto, Bello waterfall, 194; fu-
ture value of, 195; splendid
opportunities for settlement in
region of, 195; breakfast at
the, 199

Si0 Joao fazenda, arrival at,
103; near hamlet of, 340, 342

Sao Lourenco, 113, 121; junc-
tion of Paraguay and, 123

Sao Luis de Caceres, 8, 123; ar-
rival at, 131; fine government
school at, 132; 199

Sao Paulo, 10, 14, 15, 132

Scents, 168, 252

Scorpion, 311

Sepotuba, the, or River of Ta-
pirs, 136; fine cattle country
along, 156; exploration and
first maps of, 157; camp be-
side, 175; 200

Sequoia, 45

Serpents, 311

“Sertao,” or wilderness, 209

Serums, anti-venom, 10, 13-16,
Appendix B, 369

“Shenzi,” one of the dogs, 67

Shipton, Major, 247

Sigg, Jacob, 4, 5, 9; motor-boat
improvised by, 131; 165, 186,
205; return to Tapirapoan, 207

Sense, 275; death of, 276,

Skobeloff, 1

Sloth, 343

Smith, Mr. Lord, 29

Snakes, 10-12; poison of, 13-21;
some mammals immune to
bites of, 22, 23; 137; stories of,
228; 236, 255, 256

Snethlage, Miss, 177, 347

Solimoens, 346

South America, topography of,
6, 7; ceremony of public func-
tions in, 47; Christianity in,
51, 52, 58; education in, 59;
mammalia and avifauna of,
70-72; need for work of col-
‘lector in, 74; rich bird fauna
of, 112; field for work of big-

Index

game hunter and faunal nat-
uralist in, 120; ferocity of cer-
tain small animals in, 173;
much exploring work to be
done in, 177; two great water-
falls of, 199; impostors among
explorers of, 261; early semi-
civilizations in, 301; social and
industrial development of, Ap-
pendix A, 353; travellers in,
353, 357; wilderness work to
be done in, 358

Southern Cross, the, 49, 80

Sparrows, 173

Spear, jaguar, 106

Spiders, a colony of, 183, 213,
214, 239

Squirrels, 137

Stilts, 201

Stirrups, ornamental, 106

Stockton, Frank R., stories by,
192

Store, the first, 334

Sunsets, contrasted, 203

Surveying, method of, 250, 251;
instruments for, Appendix B,
388

Swallows, 164

“Swiss Family Robinson,” 78

Tamandua bandeira. See Ant-
eater.

Tanageira, Doctor, 270

Tapajos, the, 134, 135, 187, 189,
216, 247, 347

Tapirapoan, 136, 158; start up-
stream for, 160; arrival at,
165; party divides at, 170; 172

Tapirs, 138, 140, 142-144, 146;
curious relation of horse and,
147

Tapirs, River of. See Sepotuba.

Taquary, the, 66

Taunay River, 296, 349

Telegraph, establishment of, 158;
wages paid for work on wil-
derness lines of, 159, 193;
spiders swarm on, 239

Telegraphic Commission, 157,
165, 181, 210; work of, 217;

409

Juruena fitst mapped by, 220;
labor of, 327; solution of
River of Doubt mystery made
Dossibte by previous work of,

Tents, 214, 247; Appendix B,
368

Thermometers, Appendix B, 390

Tools, Appendix B, 387, 388

Tragedy, a terrible, 311-317

Transportation, 189

Travellers, status of the ordi-
nary, 176-178; ignorance of
certain, 261; three categories
of, Appendix A, 353-357

Trees, 49, 50, 74; taruman, 81;
flowers on, 100; 139; fig, 149;
160-164, 179, 190; fossil trunk
of, 234; 235, 251; barriers
formed by, 253; bee, 263;
tubber, 235, 275, 292; arapu-
tanga, 287; fruit of cajazeira,
291; peculiarity of, 293; 300.
See Palm.

Tree-toad, 264

Tres Burity, government ranch
at, 239, 242

“Trigueiro,” one of the dogs, 67,
275, 277, 323

Tropics, entered the, 49; iron
cruelty of life in the, 151

Turtle, land, 160; river, 322

“Twelfth of October,” 235

University of Pennsylvania, a
Paraguayan graduate of the,
48

Uruguay, 9

Utensils, Indian, 209, 244, 245

Utiarity Falls, 186; arrival at,
200; telegraph station at, 201;
beauty of, 201, 202, 206

Vaqueiros, 106, 126, 145
Viedma, Lake, 29
Vilhena, 235-239

Vines, 100, 114

Vireo, 234

Wallace, 345

410

Wasp, orioles’ nests surrounded
by, 102; dangerous sting of
red, 118; spiders preyed on by,
121; maribundi, 137, 150, 251;
ants plunder nests of, 168

Weapons, Indian, 209, 245

Weasel, tayra, 99

Weather, 60, 65, 96, 112, 160,
170, 306

Wilderness, party enters the,
209; difficulties of travel in,
215; etiquette of the, 240; first
stage of conquest of the, 334;
geographical and zoological
work still to be done in the,
Appendix A, 358

Index

Wolf, red, 77, 127
Woods, 235
Wrens, ant, 167, 168

Xingu, 189, 347

Zahm, Father, 1, 2, 5; children
baptized by, 57; 132; Colonel
Roosevelt ‘reminded of his
wish to shoot tapir and jaguar
by, 144; 162, 186, 205; returns
to Tapirapoan, 207

Zoologist, work of field, in
Sorte America, Appendix A,

SCHE

Mo:
EXPEDICA

—— furmas
Rscreplorto L
0 2°Ten. R.Noro
10

Map forwarded by Lieutenant Lyra, and received just after the completion of this book

Showing the route of the expedition, and the positions of the new river and of the Gy-Parana and of the upper tributaries of the Juruena

SCHEMA DA CARTA DO
BRAZIL

Mostrando a itinerario da

EXPEDICAO ROOSEVELT-RONDON

ESCALA 1:15,000.000

1914

a Jurmas reundas ——— — lurma wetada —
a

Lscreplorto Certrat da. pS Telegraptucn Agos lo. 974.
0 2°Ten. R.Noronka — des. t Conte re = I Ten Saguarebe oe Holton

ist after the completion of this book

the Gy-Parand and of the upper tributaries of the Juruena

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