was all we could do to keep a few yards in front
of the flames, the heat of which was roasting our backs and necks. At
last, in a desperate effort, we managed to get slightly ahead, and when
we descended--some of the animals rolled down--into a deep depression, we
found ourselves clear of the smoke. The wind was unfortunately blowing
the way we were travelling, but in that depression we were sheltered, and
the fire would not travel so fast. Our eyes were smarting terribly and
we were coughing violently, our parched throats and lungs, filled with
the pungent smoke, giving us a feeling of nausea. When we had reached a
point of comparative safety we had to readjust all the loads on the
pack-saddles, which had almost come undone. It was a wonder to me that in
the precipitous flight we had lost nothing.

We had unavoidably deviated several kilometres from our course, as the
animals were beyond guiding under those circumstances. Eventually, after
a considerable detour in order to avoid the flames, we went over several
undulations--especially a peninsula-like spine of rock rising over a
great depression, then between two twin mountains. We emerged on the bank
of the Rio Manso, flowing northward on a pebbly bed. We crossed it where
it was one hundred metres wide, but only 2 to 3 ft. deep. There was a
thick growth of vegetation--a belt some hundred yards wide--on both banks
of the river. The Rio Manso was there at an altitude above the sea level
of 1,150 ft.

I took observations for longitude, and latitude by double altitudes at
that place. (Lat. 13 deg. 53' S; Long. 55 deg. 13' W.) I had to halt there one
day in order to give the animals a rest, after the long and reckless
march of the previous day--a distance of 42 kil.

The source of the Rio Manso was to the E.S.E. some 120 kil. from the
place where we crossed it. Where we encamped it received a small
streamlet, flowing over a bed of laminated igneous rock and several
successive strata of slate, which in some places were in a vertical
position, in others at an angle of 40 deg.. I noticed this vertical foliation
and these laminated strata all over the great depression we had crossed
in order to reach the Rio Manso.

The Rio Manso, which flowed into the Cuyaba River, was not to be
confounded with the Rio Manso forming the head-waters of the Rio das
Mortes, which eventually threw itself into the River Araguaya.

Owing to one of my animals having strayed away and the difficu