there remained of the _mutum_ we had shot
the previous evening. Little we knew then that we were not to taste fresh
meat again for nearly a month from that date.

During September 3rd we made fairly good progress, cutting our way
through incessantly. We went that day 20 kil. We had no lunch, and it was
only in the evening that we opened the last of the three small boxes of
sardines, our entire dinner consisting of three and a half sardines each.

On September 4th we were confronted, soon after our departure, with a
mountainous country with deep ravines and furrows, most trying for us
owing to their steepness. We went over five ranges of hills from 100 to
300 ft. in height, and we crossed five streamlets in the depressions
between those successive ranges.

Filippe was again suffering greatly from an attack of fever, and I had to
support him all the time, as he had the greatest difficulty in walking.
Benedicto had that day been entrusted with the big knife for cutting the
_picada_.

We went some 20 kil. that day, with nothing whatever to eat, as we had
already finished the three boxes of sardines, and I was reserving the box
of anchovies for the moment when we could stand hunger no longer.

On September 5th we had another very terrible march over broken country,
hilly for a good portion of the distance, but quite level in some parts.

The man Benedicto, who was a great eater, now collapsed altogether,
saying that he could no longer carry his load and could not go on any
farther without food.

The entire day our eyes had roamed in all directions, trying to discover
some wild fruit which was edible, or some animal we might shoot, but
there was the silence of death all around us. Not a branch, not a leaf
was moved by a living thing; no fruit of any kind was to be seen
anywhere.

Our appetite was keen, and it certainly had one good effect--it stopped
Filippe's fever and, in fact, cured it altogether.

The two men were tormenting me the whole day, saying they had no faith in
the compass: how could a brass box--that is what they called it--tell us
where we could find _feijao_? It was beyond them to understand it. They
bemoaned themselves incessantly, swearing at the day they had been
persuaded to come along with me and leave their happy homes in order to
die of starvation in the forest with a mad Englishman! And why did we go
across the forest at all, where there was no trail, when we could have
gone down by the river