the Grinko,
the Pomba, the Corgo do Campo, the Riberao Grande, and the Stiva. Many of
those streamlets had beautiful beds of white marble pebbles, which made
their cool and clear water look and taste perfectly delicious. Others,
with soft black mud bottoms--especially in _cuvettes_--were extremely
troublesome to cross.

On the banks of those streams were marvellous _pacobeira_ palms--a kind
of giant banana palm, attaining a height of 30 to 40 ft., with a stem,
ovoid in section, of great length, and from which shot out paddle-like
leaves of immense size and of a gorgeous green, 6 to 7 ft. long and 3 ft.
wide.

On July 3rd we went through thick, dirty, low scrub and forest, except
along streams, the banks of which were lined with tall anaemic trees 1
inch in diameter with a mere bunch of leaves from branches at the
summit. We again met with several _cuvettes_--very grassy, with the usual
florid growth of trees in the centre. Those depressions were 1,400 ft.
above the sea level. From many of the trees hung huge globes, like
tumours. They were nests of _cupim_, the destructive white ants (_termes
album_), of which there were swarms everywhere in that region. In one
night they ate up the bottoms of most of my wooden boxes and rendered
many of our possessions useless. They ate up our clothes, injured our
saddles by eating the stitching--anything that was not of metal, glass,
or polished leather was destroyed by those little devils.

We were beginning to descend gradually on the northern side of the
table-land. After crossing a pass 1,350 ft. above the sea level we
arrived on a lagoon to our left. Shortly after we reached the left bank
of the Arinos River, separated there from the lagoon by a narrow tongue
of high land--some 30 ft. high--between the two waters.

It was thus that on July 4th we encamped on that great tributary of the
Amazon. We were still thousands of kilometres away from its mouth. My
animals were quite exhausted and were unable to continue. Moreover, the
forest near this great river--already, so near its birthplace, over 100
metres wide--would have made their coming along quite impossible, as the
grazing was getting scarce, and would be scarcer still as we went on
north. Then as the River Arinos took me in the direction in which I
intended to travel, I had made up my mind to abandon the animals at that
spot and attempt to navigate the river--diabolical as its reputation
was.

We had now travelled on hor