beasts down. I
recommended the greatest care to my men, but instead of following my
instructions they drove the rebellious quadrupeds with their whips in a
heap along the path--only a few inches wide--which we had cut. Result:
Collisions among the animals and against the wall, and, next, five mules
and baggage rolled down the mountain-side at a vertiginous speed until
they had reached the bottom, some hundreds of feet below. Antonio, the
strong man of the party, who tried to go to the rescue of one of the
animals, was also dragged down, and came within an ace of losing his
life. He was able to embrace a shrub with all his might just before
rolling over the precipice, and we rescued him. We had to waste a great
deal of time cutting an improvised way in the mountain side. Then we had
to unload all the animals and convey the loads down on men's heads. Each
animal was then with great difficulty and danger led by hand down to the
stream.

Great quantities of beautiful marble and crystals were met with, and
masses of lava pellets and ferruginous rock. In the Jangada valley we
found two hot springs emerging from the side of the plateau from which we
had descended. I discovered there two miserable tiny sheds belonging to a
family of escaped negro slaves. They had lived seventeen years in that
secluded spot. They grew enough Indian corn to support them. All the
members of the family were pitifully deformed and demented. Seldom have I
seen such miserable-looking specimens of humanity. One was demented to
such an extent that it was impossible to get out of him more than a few
disconnected groans. He spent most of his time crouched like an animal,
and hardly seemed conscious of what took place round him. Another was a
deaf and dumb _cretin_; a third possessed a monstrous hare-lip and a
deformed jaw; while two women, dried up and skinny, and a child were
badly affected by goitre. For a single family that seemed a melancholy
spectacle.

[Illustration: How Author's Animals rolled down Trailless Ravines.]

It was really pitiable--everywhere in the interior of Brazil--wherever
you came across a family, to find that all its members were _cretins_,
and deformed to such an extent as to make them absolutely repulsive.
Frequently I had noticed among the common abnormalities supernumerary
fingers and toes. One child at this place, in fact, had six toes to each
foot, besides being an idiot, deaf and dumb, and affected by goitre. The
only on