the best of the whole lot. He even went
back with me to try and recover some of the most important things from
the loads which the men had abandoned some 2 kil. before we had made our
camp.

As we stumbled along we could not even lean against the trees to have a
little rest, as most of them had thousands of horizontal thorns of great
length sticking out all around them. Innumerable thorns were upon the
ground. Our feet were full of them. I looked all the time where I was
putting my feet, but sometimes the thorns were hidden under masses of
dried foliage, and they were so long and so strong that they went clean
through the sides of my shoes.

The last blow came to me that evening, when my men informed me that we
had no food whatever left. All that remained of our three months'
provisions were six tins of sardines and one tin of anchovies. That was
all. My men made no secret of having thrown away everything as we came
along. The sugar, for which they had a perfect craving, they had eaten,
consuming in the last two days the entire supply of 30 lb., which had
remained until then. It was then that I understood the cause of the
internal inflammation from which they all suffered. They were greatly
excited, and demanded the balance of their money, not wishing to come on
any more; they wanted to fall back on the River Tapajoz and go home.
There was a riot. They threatened to shoot me if I insisted on their
coming on.

Just then a big black monkey appeared upon a tree, inquisitively watching
our doings. The man X shot it. A moment later a big _jaho_ was brought
down, also by the man X, who was the best shot of the party. My men were
never too ill to eat. They immediately proceeded to skin the poor monkey
and pluck the feathers from the bird, in order to prepare a hearty meal.
But they complained that they had no _feijao_, and no coffee after their
dinner. When we started a few days before we had a supply of 40 lb. of
coffee.

Feasting on the meat did not seem to be a good remedy for internal
inflammation and fever. The next morning my men were really in a
precarious condition. I saw that it was out of the question for them to
continue. Personally, I would certainly not go back. I came to an
understanding with them that I would leave sufficient ammunition for them
to shoot with, as there seemed to be plenty of game in that particular
part of the forest. We would divide equally what provisions we had--that
is to say, three ti