2 1 6 THE " MATO GROSSO. " 



draw sustenance from the air, and thus flow from stem 

 to stem, and from thicket to thicket, in a way that 

 renders it almost impossible to trace the course of any 

 particular specimen, except by cutting down the trees. 

 Mr. Wallace, however, thinks that in some cases they 

 may be as much as i ooo feet long ; and if so they can 

 compete with the giant seaweed of the Southern Ocean 

 (Macrocystis Pyriferd) for the distinction of being re- 

 garded as the longest of all vegetable growths. It is 

 this class of plants that renders travelling through these 

 forests a work of such labour and difficulty; many 

 of them being armed with tremendous thorns and 

 prickles, whilst others are dreaded by the natives for their 

 acrid juices. The thickets are thus often rendered 

 actually impenetrable until a passage is cut, or tunnelled, 

 through the tangled masses of vegetation. An immense 

 province, in the interior of Brazil, for instance, of which 

 very little has as yet been explored, has thus been 

 called the " Mato Grosso," or the Great Thicket, as 

 these words signify in Portuguese. * 



Some idea of the difficulties of forcing a passage 

 through these dense masses of vegetation may be 

 formed from the statement of Mr. H. M. Stanley, who 

 says his rate of progress during his great march 

 through the forest was often under a quarter of a 

 mile per hour: and at a meeting of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society, he subsequently explained that the 

 sum of the journeys made by the expedition under 

 his command for the relief of Emin Pasha, extended 

 to upwards of six thousand miles, and occupied 978 

 days, 500 of which were passed in the forest, through 

 which they actually travelled 1670 miles, which would 



* This territory comprises within its limits 668,655 square miles. 



