ed to one another, covering heads and all, and had
arranged a blazing fire enough to roast an ox quite close to them.

Personally, I was quite happy under a mere shelter tent--open for
precaution on all sides, owing to preceding experiences, so that I could
see what was going on all around without getting up from my camp bed. I
only had a mere thin camel-hair blanket over me. I never slept in my
clothes, preferring the comfort of ample silk pyjamas. In the morning I
always indulged in my cold shower bath, two large buckets of water being
poured by Alcides upon my head and back, amid the shivering yells of my
trembling companions, who, at a distance, watched the operation, wrapped
up to such an extent that merely their eyes were exposed.

"He is mad!" I often heard them murmur with chattering teeth.

Beneath heavy horizontal clouds low in the sky and ball-like cloudlets
above, we started off once more from an elevation of 2,100 ft. at the
camp to proceed over a plateau 2,300 ft. high and some 6 kil. broad from
east to west. Then we descended into another charming _cuvette_ (elev.
2,100 ft.), and farther on to a streamlet flowing north, the Rio Coriseo.

We were then travelling over reddish and ochre-coloured volcanic sand,
going through stunted and fairly open _matto_ (forest), higher up at
2,250 ft. in successive undulations crossing our route at right angles.
In one of the depressions (elev. 2,150 ft.) was a river--the Rio
Torresino--flowing north. Quantities of yellow globular lava pellets and
lumpy blocks--evidently ejected by a volcano--were seen.

The stream Cabeca de Boi--forming after the Rio Macacos (or River of
Monkeys) a tributary of the Rio das Mortes, into which flowed all the
rivulets we had lately met--was next crossed (elev. 2,130 ft.). Over more
and deep beds of ashes we journeyed at 2,270 ft. on the southern edge of
a great grassy basin extending from east to west. Again a delightful
group of palms and healthy trees was in the typical depression. Ant-hills
were innumerable on all sides. One could not help admiring their
architectural lines, which formed all kinds of miniature fortresses and
castles. We were worried to death by the _pium_ or _lambe-olhos_
(eye-lickers), as the Brazilians call them, which followed us all day in
swarms around our heads and hands, entering our mouths, noses, eyes and
ears. Only for a few moments, when there blew a gust of wind, were we
freed from this pest, but they soon