Through the Brazilian Wilderness

wift, fairly clear stream, rushing down from the Plan Alto, the high uplands, through the tropical lowland forest. On the right hand, or western bank, and here and there on the left ba

apirapoan. 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 Rondon and the tent in which Kermit and I slept, in the middle, beside one another. In front of these two,

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 b

oomy, 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 bowsman 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 dugouts 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 in substantially similar clothes,

ween 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 cecropias, 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. We saw one or two squ

ny trails led through the woods, and especially 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 rhinoceros, being one of the odd-toed ungulates. We could hear the dogs now and then

t in another moment we caught glimpses of it running by at full speed, back among the palms. I covered an opening 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

ch as I have sometimes found in deer's stomachs. This species, which is abundant 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 animal 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 regard

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 clambering 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-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 unhurt, 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 o

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 bi

rica 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 continued heavy until after sunset. Then the rain stopped and the full moon broke through the cloud-rack. Father Zahm and I walke

te 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 ancestry 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 tomtom drum, and the twanging of some old stringed instrument. The small black turkey-buzzards, here al

ull and skin were sent back with the other specimens to the American Museum, where after due examination and comparison its specific identify 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

r from their original home. The relations of the horse and tapir in the paleontological history of South America are very curious. Both were, geologically speaking, comparatively recent immigrants, and if they came at different dates it is almost 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 different species but even different genera. It was much the most highly specialized of the two, and in the other continental regions where both were found the horse o

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 ma

to come or to let his dogs come, explaining that the fierce wild swine were "very badly brought up" (a literal translation 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 e

nd 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 leadin

d marshy plains. In one of them a herd of half- wild cattle was feeding. Herons, storks, d

he 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

nty or thirty feet long, with the many long, narrow green blades starting from the midrib at right angles in pairs. Round the ponds stood stately burity palms, rising like huge columns, with great branches

ngle, 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, although they were now and then cutting the trail. Colonel Rondon and I were in the middle of the column, and the swarm attack

s from the skeleton or dried carcass of some big animal. The loathsome berni flies, which deposit eggs in living beings-cattle, dogs, monkeys, rodents, men-had been at it. There were seven huge, white grubs making big abscess-like swellings over its eyes. These flies deposit their grubs in men. In 1

not deceive 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 e

sappeared 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

and grunting, or else actually to charge. Where much persecuted the survivors gradually grow more willing to run, but their instinct is not to run but to trust to their truculence and their mass-action for safety. They inflict a fearful bite and frequently kill dogs. They often charge the 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,

. 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

ble 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 kill

te 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

uarry is the jaguar or big 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 other

of the harsh and improper laws of debt. In practice 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- 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 combining industrial with purely mental training, and the need of havi

nant- 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 3rd, 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, having 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 th

n its results even more important than, any similar work undertaken elsewhere on the globe at or about the same time. It

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 Cardozo. 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 hards

ourselves and all our belongings on the launch and the house- boat, and started up-stream for Tapirapoan. All told there were about thirt

easant for travelling; but sometimes rain and torrid sunshine alternated. The cooking-and it was good cooking-was

hine. 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 tether

r 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 flowers of the begonia-vine made large patches of color. Innumerable 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 r

hammocks, and other 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 Brazilian nov

y branches of the wawasa palm, stuck upright in the ground and the blades plaited together. Some of us went ashore. Some stayed on the boats. There were no mosquitoes,

The trees were wawasa palms, some with the fronds cresting very tall trunks, some with the fronds-seemingly longer-rising 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 between. We left at sunrise the following morning. One of the sailors had strayed inland. He go

ne 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

e 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 s

ew 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 pi

r. 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;

rked with whole-hearted zeal and cheerfulness, also helped him, except 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 mammals. It was not probable that they would do as well during the remainder of our trip, for we intended thenceforth to halt as little, and march as steadily, as the country, the weather, and the condition of our means of transportation permitted. I kept continually wishing that they had more time in which to study the absorbingly interesting life-histories of the b

the same way, and showing the same helpless 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 foraging ants. He at first thought that the fledglings had been devoured, but he soon saw the parents, only about 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 reappearing once more with food. Miller never found their new nests, but their actions

housand feet up on the Andes, and its song suggested the songs of both of our sparrows. There were doves and woodpeckers 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 nesting 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

th 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 al

w 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 the Paraguay and to New York, in charge of Harper. Th