A FORTY DAYS' RIDE 235 



on eating and drinking out of our dishes, and consumed 

 quantities of food that might have been used to better ad- 

 vantage later. 



The country beyond the Juruena is somewhat rolling, 

 but there is no appreciable change in the vegetation. We 

 rode twenty kilometres the first day, camping on the banks 

 of the Rio da Fomiga (February 10) . Next day we travelled 

 but twelve kilometres, reaching the Jurina, a shallow though 

 rapid stream six hundred feet wide; the crossing was slow 

 and laborious, as there was only one very small balsa or ferry. 

 Camp was pitched on the banks of a small stream a league 

 beyond. Near by were several deserted thatched huts and 

 the comparatively new graves where two Brazilian soldiers 

 and one army officer had been buried. The Indians had 

 killed them, and interred them in an upright position with 

 the head and shoulders protruding out of the ground. The 

 following night, on the Rio Primavera we saw two other 

 graves; the men who were buried there had been slain while 

 asleep in their hammocks. This was the most dangerous 

 part of the whole Nhambiquara country. 



When we reached a place called Mutum Cavallo in the 

 afternoon of the 15th, the mules Kermit and I had ridden 

 were so tired that we decided to give them a day's rest; that 

 meant walking to the next camping-site, and rather than 

 undertake the long journey during the hot hours of the next 

 day we planned to start immediately after supper. There 

 was still some time to spend, however, so we went about 

 our work as usual. An army of ants was foraging near 

 the tents; they had discovered a large, hairy caterpillar, 

 but the half-inch long "bristles" with which it was covered 

 protected its body from the onslaught of the marauding 

 host. The ants, however, were not to be deterred from 

 their purpose; they made repeated rushes at the caterpillar, 

 clipping off a bit of hair each time they struck. After con- 

 tinuing these tactics for twenty minutes, a small patch of 

 the plump insect's body had been cleared of hair, and one 

 ant got a good hold with its vise-like mandible. The cater- 



