y clean forest, barring a
few obstacles such as huge, ancient, fallen trees, the insides of which
were all rotted away or eaten up by ants. In one of the cavities of those
trees I found another quantity of food which had been hidden by my men.
Hampered by the Indians, who were giving me no end of trouble as they
refused to carry their loads, it took me some little time to catch up
with my other men. When I did I found them all seated, smacking their
lips. They were filling their mouths as fast as they could with handfuls
of sugar. When I reprimanded them there was an unpleasant row. They said
they were not beasts of burden, that men were not made to carry, and that
therefore they had thrown away all the food. Under no circumstance would
they carry loads any farther.

A great deal of tact and persuasion were required. Alcides had discarded
nearly all the stuff he carried, and was one of the chief offenders on
that occasion.

Matters looked bad. We camped that night near a little streamlet at the
point where it had its birth. We still had plenty of food left,
notwithstanding what they had thrown away. I warned them that if they
threw away any more we should certainly all die of starvation. During the
night one of the Indians ran away carrying with him a quantity of our
provisions.

On August 27th I once more proceeded on the march westward, this time
with no _picada_ at all to follow, but cutting our way all the time
through the forest. Mr. Julio Nery, who had been sent with me, was an
enthusiastic and brave man, but in trying to help made us waste a great
deal of energy and time. After marching eight hours we had only gone 10
kil. in the right direction, having made many deviations in order to find
what he called a more suitable way. We travelled occasionally over
thickly wooded, slightly undulating country, but generally the land was
flat.

[Illustration: Apiacar Boy.]

[Illustration: Apiacar Indian.]

In the afternoon, when we arrived at the foot of a small hill, we were
caught in a drenching storm, the foliage letting the water down upon us
in profusion. The walking became heavy. In order to make the loads
lighter, my men had removed from the packages the waterproof coverings I
had made for them from waterproof sheets. The result was that in that
storm nearly our entire supply of salt--some 50 lb. of it--was lost. The
powdered sugar, too, suffered considerably, and became a solid sticky
mass.

We arrived at