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 interpreter.

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 matte, of which much is grown in the region roundabout. Most of
the houses were low, with overhanging, sloping caves; and there were
gardens with 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 December 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 ranchman, a Uruguayan, who had just received his newspaper
containing my speech in Montevideo, and who, as I gathered from what I
understood of his rather voluble Spanish, 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 accompanied 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 moonlight 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 distan