er 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 uncomfortable. 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 practically 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.

This does not mean that there are not such foes. Outside 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 standpoint
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 hardworking field naturalist or big-game
hunter, have to face these pests, just as they have to face countless
risks, hardships, and difficulties. This is inherent in their several
professions or avocations. Many regions in the United States where
life is now absolutely comfortable and easygoing offered most
formidable problems to the first explorers a century or two ago. We
must not fall into the foolish error of thinking that th