THE DESCENT OF THE RIO GY-PARANA 243 



only the canvas flies, as it had been found necessary to 

 abandon the wall-tents some little distance back on ac- 

 count of their great weight. There was no feed for the 

 animals, but the men had cut a quantity of palm-leaves 

 growing abundantly in the. forest, which the oxen refused 

 to eat, however. 



The trail had now left the open chapadao and wound be- 

 tween high walls of dark forest; instead of the monotonous 

 level of the plain, the country was broken and hilly, with 

 numerous small streams trickling through the dividing ra- 

 vines, and it rained almost continuously; if we had suc- 

 ceeded in evading the rainy season heretofore, it descended 

 on us now with doubled vigor. 



A very wide swath had been cut through the forest for 

 the telegraph-line to protect the wires from falling trunks 

 and branches; so recent had been the work that the shriv- 

 elled leaves still clung to the prostrate trees, and the thick 

 second growth, which springs up immediately where the 

 sunlight is permitted to reach the ground, was just sprout- 

 ing. The ground was covered with fruits of many kinds, 

 most of them insipid or of acrid flavor, but the herds of 

 peccaries seemed to relish them; and the flocks of parrots 

 and macaws quarrelled noisily overhead in their struggles 

 to reach some particularly appetizing morsel. One of the 

 things that especially attracted our attention was the great 

 number of hard, cannon-ball-like shells that littered the 

 trail; they were the empty casques of the castanha, or Brazil 

 nut, which grew abundantly throughout the forest. The 

 Indians had opened most of them, in what manner I am 

 unable to say, as they are so hard the blows of a hammer 

 fail to make any impression, and extracted the dozen or 

 more triangular nuts from each. The trees upon which 

 they grow are remarkable for their height and great thick- 

 ness; not infrequently we saw one a hundred and fifty feet 

 high and four feet in diameter without a single branch lower 

 than sixty or seventy feet. Graves were numerous by the 

 wayside; I counted fifteen, near one another, each newly 



