what a prospect! We had our
first quarrel when the men demanded to have their belts replenished with
cartridges for their protection against attack. As I refused to let them
have them there was a mutiny, the men declining to go on another yard
unless the cartridges were handed to them. We had not been gone more than
three hours, and a mutiny already! With a great deal of patience I
induced them to go on, which they eventually did with oaths and language
somewhat unpleasant. Still I held firm.

After several ascents and descents and a great many mishaps with our
mules, unaccustomed yet to the work, we made camp, having marched 18
kil., on the bank of the Rio Agapa (elev. 1,650 ft.), near which the
grazing was fair.

Two mules escaped during the night, and we could only make a late start
the next morning. Alcides traced them all the way back to Goyaz, where he
recovered them. Up and down we went, from 1,760 ft. to 1,550 ft., at
which elevation we crossed the Rio Indio with a beautiful rocky bed the
banks of which showed strata of red and grey clay and delicious
crystalline water. No fossils of any kind were to be seen anywhere,
although I looked hard in search of them all the time. The country was
undulating and fairly thickly wooded near streams, otherwise it consisted
mostly of campos, at the highest point of which another beautiful
panoramic view of the escarpment in the plateau we had left behind could
be obtained. The elevation was constantly changing between 1,750 ft. and
2,050 ft. above the sea level. Burity and other palms were plentiful. We
crossed that day three streams, the last one the Rio Uva.

In a distance of 38 kil. we saw only a miserable shed, although we passed
a site where a ruined house and paddock showed that once there must have
been quite an ancient and important farm. Yes, indeed, Goyaz State had
seen better days in the time of the Emperor and when slavery was legal.
With the present lack of population and the prohibitive prices of labour
it was impossible to carry on farming profitably.

The landscape was everywhere beautiful, but one never saw a bird, never
perceived a butterfly, nor any other animal life of any kind. I was just
remarking this fact to Alcides when a snake, eight or nine feet long,
crossed at a great speed in front of my mule. The mules and horses were
rather frightened at first of snakes, and it was amusing to watch how
high they stepped when they saw them and tried to escap