Good
gracious! where in the world are you taking us?"

We had to halt as soon as convenient in order to cut some new paddles. It
took my men some hours to recover from the effects of that experience.

As is generally the case after a violent emotion, a great deal of
merriment was produced, my men for the rest of the day talking about the
incident and reproducing in a realistic way the sounds of the rushing
water and the impact of the waves against the canoe.

We found after that a great basin 3,000 m. long, 1,300 m. broad, from
west to east, with a lovely sand beach 1,000 m. long on its eastern side.

[Illustration: Conveying the Canoe through the Forest.

(Notice the side of the canoe split and stuffed with pieces of cloth.)]

At last--after all that time without meeting a soul--I came across a
small tribe of Mundurucus--six of them all counted. They had their
_aldeja_, or village, on the right side of the stream. Their chief
rejoiced in the name of Joao. They were tiny little fellows, the tallest
only 5 ft. in height. If you had met them anywhere else than in Central
Brazil you would have mistaken them for Japanese, so exactly like them
were they in appearance. Their faces were of a very dark yellow, almost
black, with perfectly straight hair, just like the Japanese or their near
cousins, the Tagalos of the Philippine Islands.

The Mundurucus were mild and gentle, soft-spoken and shy. They had all
adopted Brazilian clothes. The hut of the chief was extremely clean and
neat inside, the few utensils that were visible being kept in a tidy
manner.

Joao spoke a little Portuguese. From him I was able to buy a quantity of
_farinha_, which came in useful to us, although I had to pay an
exorbitant price for it--L4 sterling for each 50 litres or
thereabouts--that is to say, about 51/2 pecks in English measure. The price
of _farinha_ on the coast would be less than four shillings for that
quantity.

What interested me most among the Mundurucus was their strange
ornamentations. The angular pattern was a great favourite with them,
especially angles side by side, and the cross--which I think had been
suggested, however, by their contact with Catholic missionaries farther
down the river.

The rudimentary figures which they carved--merely lines for the body,
legs and arms, and a dot for the head--were extraordinary because they
represented the body and limbs covered with hair, done simply by minor
parallel lines. I asked