is_), were trees to be seen in that region.

We had wonderfully clear sky in the morning. At noon it became slightly
clouded, while in the afternoon one-third of the sky was covered. A light
breeze blew from the west.

Some 28 kil. from the Araguaya we came to a small miserable farmhouse.
After a great deal of bargaining I was able to purchase some extra
horses. The people had no idea whatever of the value of money, and named
sums at first which would have easily purchased the finest horses on the
English turf. They descended in time to more reasonable figures.

Our life was rendered miserable all day by the millions of _pium_ or
gnats that swarmed around us and stung us with incredible fierceness and
viciousness. Those little brutes left on our skins black marks fully as
large as themselves wherever they stung us. The itching was most trying.
Those marks remained for several weeks, and only disappeared when we
perforated them with a needle to let the blood out, or waited long enough
for them to become desiccated and the skin re-formed.

_Pium_ is a word of the Tupi and Tupinamba Indians' language. Those tiny
insects entered your eyes, leaving behind an odoriferous acid which
caused great irritation of the lids. We removed dozens every day from our
eyes. Fortunately they were easily extracted. They also dashed into your
ears, up your nose, and, whenever you opened it, inside your mouth.

It was well worth going to Matto Grosso to enjoy the lovely moonlight
nights, only comparable in their luminous splendour to nights of Central
Africa in the middle of the Sahara desert, and to those on the high
Tibetan plateau in Asia. The light of the moon was so vivid that one
could see almost as well as in the daytime.

Personally, the crisp cool air (min. 59 deg. Fahr.) made me feel in most
excellent health and spirits, but my men, who had putrid constitutions,
were a mass of aches and pains. Some cried like children the entire night
with toothache, moaning and shrieking like lunatics when the pain became
acute; others got internal aches, another had cramp in the legs. I must
say that Alcides, with all his faults, was the only one who always did
his work--not always with common sense, but he did it--and, when ill,
never gave exhibitions of pitiful weakness like the others.

Filippe, the negro, who eventually showed himself to be the bravest
Brazilian on that expedition, also stood the pain more calmly and with
manliness. As I