n their long-drawn countenances. When they greeted one another
they laid their bodies close together as if about to dance the _tango_,
and patted each other repeatedly on the shoulder-blades, turning their
heads away as if to avoid their reciprocal evil odour. It is not the
fashion in any part of Brazil to shake hands. Some say it is because of
the unpleasant feeling of touching sweating hands; others suggest that it
is to prevent the contagion of the many skin complaints from which
people suffer. When they do shake hands--with a stranger, for
instance--one might as well be grasping the very dead hand of a very dead
man; it is done in so heartless a manner.

For a consideration they reluctantly gave a stranger what little they
possessed, but they had not the remotest idea of the value of things. In
one farmhouse you were charged the equivalent of a few pence for an egg
or a chicken; in the next farm a small fortune was demanded for similar
articles of convenience. Men, women, children, dogs, pigs and fowls, all
lived--not happily, but most unhappily--together.

No sooner were we able to saddle the animals and pack the baggage and pay
our hostess, than we tried to make our escape from that musical farm. But
luck was hard on me that day. One mule was lost, a second received a
terrible gash in his hind quarters from a powerful kick from another
mule.

We went on among low, fairly grassy hills to the west, W.N.W. and to the
east of us. We still had before us the Serra de Callos--a flat-topped
tableland some 12 kil. in diameter on the summit, where it was almost
circular. Its deeply grooved sides showed clearly the great work of
erosion which had occurred and was still taking place in those regions.
With the exception of two spurs, which projected on the west and east
sides of the plateau, its sky-line was quite clean and flat.

After rising to an elevation of 2,600 ft., then descending to 2,450 ft.,
we crossed two streamlets which afterwards joined a fairly important
torrent. One was called the Rio Boa Vista. We gradually then rose to
2,750 ft. on another flat tableland to the east of the Serra de Callos,
with its sides eroded in two distinct terraces, the higher one being
almost a straight wall from two-thirds up the side of the range. In the
lower portion a number of rounded mounds were to be observed, which, with
a stretch of the imagination and for the sake of comparison, resembled,
perhaps, elephants' heads.

Nort