228 IN THE WILDS OF SOUTH AMERICA 



the engine on the rare occasions when such a procedure 

 was necessary. 



On the afternoon of the third day we reached a point 

 called Macacos. A few decaying huts marked the spot, 

 and in them lived a number of Parecis Indians, the first 

 we had seen. They were a wild-looking lot; some of them 

 wore breech-cloths, others loose, long, shirt-like garments, 

 and all had a thick mop of tousled black hair. A few of 

 the children were nearly covered with ropes of black beads 

 cut from sections of thin rattan or bamboo. They rubbed 

 their stomachs with their hands and said "fome," meaning 

 hungry; so we gave them half of a deer that had been killed 

 a short time before, and they rushed into the huts to feast. 

 We continued on a distance of four leagues. This brought 

 us to the Rio Sacre — the end of the wide road. The river 

 is here broken by a fall of one hundred and fifty feet. As 

 elsewhere in South America, we were impressed with the 

 appalling lack of animal life. So far we had seen only a 

 few rheas, a seriema or two, and several small deer. 



On the morning of the 29th we crossed the Sacre on a 

 pontoon boat and, using a number of mules that had been 

 previously sent there, rode the two leagues to the Parecis 

 Indian village of Utiarity. From afar we could hear the 

 deafening roar of water, and the Indians eagerly guided us 

 to a spot just below the settlement, where the Papagayo 

 rushes over the edge of a precipice and falls into the gorge 

 below in one sheer drop of two hundred and eighty feet. 

 The river is fully five hundred feet wide, and the quantity 

 of clear, cold water it flows is enormous. The spectacle of 

 the descending wall of snowy water streaked with various 

 shades of green and blue, the idly floating mist-clouds, and 

 the thunderous roar is awe-inspiring. When it is remem- 

 bered that these falls are higher than Niagara, one can 

 easily picture the wonderful sight that meets the eye of 

 the traveller in this virgin country. 



The Parecis are a small tribe of semicivilized Indians 

 who live in substantial huts and cultivate fields of mandioca, 



