UP THE RIVER OF TAPIRS 157 



teous and hospitable. His dark-skinned women-folk kept 

 in the furtive background. Like most of the ranches, it was 

 owned by a company with headquarters at Caceres. 



The trip was pleasant and interesting, although there 

 was not much to do on the boat. It was too crowded to 

 move around save with a definite purpose. We enjoyed 

 the scenery; we talked — in English, Portuguese, bad 

 French, and broken German. Some of us wrote. Fiala 

 made sketches of improved tents, hammocks, and other 

 field equipment, suggested by what he had already seen. 

 Some of us read books. Colonel Rondon, neat, trim, alert, 

 and soldierly, studied a standard work on applied geo- 

 graphical astronomy. Father Zahm read a novel by Fo- 

 gazzaro. Kermit read Camoens and a couple of Brazilian 

 novels, "OGuarani" and "Innocencia." My own reading 

 varied from "Quentin Durward" and Gibbon to the "Chan- 

 son de Roland." Miller took out his little pet owl Moses, 

 from the basket in which Moses dwelt, and gave him food 

 and water. Moses crooned and chuckled gratefully when 

 he was stroked and tickled. 



Late the first evening we moored to the bank by a 

 little fazenda of the poorer type. The houses were of palm- 

 leaves. Even the walls were made of the huge fronds or 

 leafy branches of the wawasa palm, stuck upright in the 

 ground and the blades plaited together. Some of us went 

 ashore. Some stayed on the boats. There were no mos- 

 quitoes, the weather was not oppressively hot, and we 

 slept well. By five o'clock next morning we had each 

 drunk a cup of delicious Brazilian cofi^ee, and the boats 

 were under way. 



All day we steamed slowly up-stream. We passed two 



