el
Rondon, a well-known and brave officer, was ordered by the Government to
find suitable volunteers in the army to accompany my expedition. After a
long delay, Colonel Rondon informed me that his search had been
unsuccessful. Colonel Rondon said he would have gladly accompanied the
expedition himself, had he not been detained in Rio by his duties as
Chief of the Bureau for the Protection and Civilization of the Indians.
Another officer offered his services in a private capacity, but he having
become involved in a lawsuit, the negotiations were suddenly interrupted.

[Illustration: Dr. Pedro de Toledo, Minister of Agriculture, Brazil.]

I endeavoured to find suitable civilians. No one would go. The Brazilian
forest, they all said, was worse, more impenetrable than any forest in
the world. Brazilian rivers were broader, deeper and more dangerous than
any river on earth. Wild beasts in Brazil were more numerous and wilder
than the wildest animals of Africa or Asia. As for the Indians of Central
Brazil, they were innumerable--millions of them--and ferocious beyond all
conception. They were treacherous cannibals, and unfortunate was the
person who ventured among them. They told stories galore of how the few
who had gone had never come back. Then the insects, the climate, the
terrible diseases of Central Brazil were worse than any insect, any
climate, any terrible disease anywhere. That is more or less the talk one
hears in every country when about to start on an expedition.

I had prepared my expedition carefully, at a cost of some L2,000 for
outfit. Few private expeditions have ever started better equipped. I
carried ample provisions for one year (tinned meats, vegetables, 1,000
boxes of sardines, fruits, jams, biscuits, chocolate, cocoa, coffee, tea,
etc.), two serviceable light tents, two complete sets of instruments for
astronomical and meteorological observations, and all the instruments
necessary for making an accurate survey of the country traversed. Four
excellent aneroids--which had been specially constructed for me--and a
well-made hypsometrical apparatus with six boiling-point thermometers,
duly tested at the Kew Observatory, were carried in order to determine
accurately the altitudes observed. Then I possessed two prismatic and six
other excellent compasses, chronometers, six photographic cameras,
specially made for me, with the very best Zeiss and Goertz lenses, and
some 1,400 glass photographic plates--includ