s gradually wearing itself down. Nearly each tree was raised on a mound
of grey clay. Some fine specimens of _Lexia_ trees, with their peculiarly
distorted branches, were to be observed.

Those great scavengers of Brazil, the _Urubu_, of which two varieties
were to be found--the _Urubu commun_ (_Cathartes atratus_) and the _Urubu
rei_ (_Cathartes Papa_)--a cross between a vulture and a crow, were
fairly plentiful now that game was more abundant in the country. They
often pierced our ears with their unmusical shrieks. The _urubu_ belonged
to the vulture family and was found in all tropical South America. It had
black plumage, somewhat shaggy, with reddish legs and feet, and bluish,
almost naked, head and neck. Like all rapacious birds of its kind, it
lived entirely on dead animals and what refuse it could find about the
country. Near farms these birds were generally to be seen in great
numbers.

We had a delicious breakfast of fish--really excellent eating--which set
everybody in a good humour, and then we proceeded over slight undulations
(elev. 1,250 to 1,300 ft.) through forest until we got to the Ponte Alto
(High Bridge) River, so called because..., there is no bridge whatever
there! The Brazilians are really too delightful in their reasoning; and,
mind you, it is not done with a mischievous sense of the
ludicrous--indeed no; it is done seriously. The Ponte Alto stream was,
like most of the other watercourses of that region, wonderfully limpid.

From that point we were in charming open country, where we could freely
breathe the delicious air. Occasionally we saw some _angelin_ trees (the
_Angelino amargoso_ and _Angelino pedra_), technically known as _Andira
vermifuga_ M. and _Andira spectabilis_ Sald.

Nearly all the woods we found had a high specific gravity: the two
latter, for instance, 0.984 and 1.052 respectively, and a resistance to
crushing of kilos 0.684 and kilos. 0.648.

_Cacti_ of great size were numerous. We were now in a region where
termite-hills (ant-hills) were to be seen in great numbers. They stood
from 2 to 3 ft. above ground, although occasionally some could be seen
nearly double that height. Some of the ant-heaps were extraordinary in
their architecture, and resembled miniature castles with towers and
terraced platforms. Whether they had been built so by the ants or worn
down to that shape by the pouring rain and wind, was not so easy to tell.

The more one saw of the termites, the more one