212 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



roads to one another and to the Atlantic coast and the 

 valleys of the Paraguay, Madeira, and Amazon, and feed- 

 ing and being fed by the dwellers in the rich, hot, alluvial 

 lowlands that surround this elevated territory. The work 

 of Colonel Rondon and his associates of the Telegraphic 

 Commission has been to open this great and virgin land to 

 the knowledge of the world and to the service of their 

 nation. In doing so they have incidentally founded the 

 Brazilian school of exploration. Before their day almost 

 all the scientific and regular exploration of Brazil was 

 done by foreigners. But, of course, there was much ex- 

 ploration and settlement by nameless Brazilians, who were 

 merely endeavoring to make new homes or advance their 

 private fortunes: in recent years by rubber-gatherers, for 

 instance, and a century ago by those bold and restless ad- 

 venturers, partly of Portuguese and partly of Indian blood, 

 the Paolistas, from one of whom Colonel Rondon is him- 

 self descended on his father's side. 



The camp by this river was in some old and grown-up 

 fields, once the seat of a rather extensive maize and man- 

 dioc cultivation by the Nhambiquaras. On this day 

 Cherrie got a number of birds new to the collection, and 

 two or three of them probably new to science. We had 

 found the birds for the most part in worn plumage, for 

 the breeding season, the southern spring and northern fall, 

 was over. But some birds were still breeding. In the 

 tropics the breeding season is more irregular than in the 

 north. Some birds breed at very different times from that 

 chosen by the majority of their fellows; some can hardly 

 be said to have any regular season; Cherrie had found one 

 species of honey-creeper breeding in every month of the 



