y quantities of loose white
marble pebbles and chips. We made our way down upon a kind of spur of red
lava, frightfully slippery for my animals. The poor beasts were quite
worn out with fatigue.

From the round dome of the headland we perceived to the south a second
great circle of flat-topped heights. The immense flow of red lava on
which we were radiated terrific heat which it had absorbed from the sun's
rays. My dogs, being nearer the ground than we were, had great difficulty
in breathing. Their heads and tails hung low, and their tongues dangled
fully out of their mouths. They stumbled along panting pitifully. Even we
on our mounts felt nearly suffocated by the stifling heat from the sun
above and the lava below. The dogs were amusing enough, curling down
quickly to rest wherever a mangy shrub gave the slightest suspicion of a
shade. The men, more stupid always than beasts, were sweating and
swearing freely, and thumped mercilessly on the rumps of the tired
animals with the butts and muzzles of their rifles in order to urge them
along.

The very sound of the mules' neck-bells seemed tired and worn; its brisk
tinkling of our days of vigour had given room to a monotonous and feeble,
almost dead, ding ... dong, at long intervals--well suggesting the
exhaustion of the poor animals, which were just able to drag along. The
slightest obstacle--a loose stone, a step in the lava, and now one
animal, then another, would collapse and roll down, and we had to
dismount and help them up on their feet again--quite a hard job, I can
tell you, when the animals were nearly dead and would not get up again.

As we went along more and more headlands of the great plateau appeared
before us to the west. We still went on descending on the top of the long
spur of lava. When not too busy with our animals--and quite out of breath
with the heat and stifling air from the heated rock--I sometimes glanced
at the glorious panorama on both sides of us. When we had proceeded
farther I ascertained that there were really two crescents contained side
by side within a larger crescent. Under us to the south a vast undulating
plain stretched as far as the eye could see towards the south-west and
west. On describing a revolution upon your heels your eye met the other
end of the larger crescent plateau to the north-west. The Serra do
Tombador extended in a south-westerly direction from north of Diamantino
to S. Luiz de Caceres, to the west of the Paraguay