n the morning of the third day
after leaving the Sepotuba. Then, at about the point where the trail
dipped into a basin containing the head-springs of the Ananas, we left
this type of country and began to march through thick forest, not very
high. There was little feed for the animals on the Chapadao. There was
less in the forest. Moreover, the continual 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 mosquitoes 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 circumstances, 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 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