ACROSS NHAMBIQUARA LAND 205 



been thirty-six hours without food. They killed a bush 

 deer — a small deer — and ate literally every particle. The 

 dogs devoured the entire skin. For much of the time on 

 this trip they lived on wild fruit, and the two dogs that 

 remained alive would wait eagerly under the trees and eat 

 the fruit that was shaken down. 



In the late afternoon the piums were rather bad at this 

 camp, but we had gloves and head-nets, and were not 

 bothered; and although there were some mosquitoes we 

 slept well under our mosquito-nets. The frogs in the 

 swamp uttered a pecuHar, loud shout. Miller told of a 

 little tree-frog in Colombia which swelled itself out with 

 air until it looked like the frog in ^Esop's fables, and then 

 brayed like a mule; and Cherrie told of a huge frog in 

 Guiana that uttered a short, loud roar. 



Next day the weather was still fair. Our march lay 

 through country like that which we had been traversing 

 for ten days. Skeletons of mules and oxen were more 

 frequent; and once or twice by the wayside we passed the 

 graves of officers or men who had died on the road. Barbed 

 wire encircled the desolate little mounds. We camped on 

 the west bank of the Burity River. Here there is a balsa, 

 or ferry, run by two Parecis Indians, as employees of the 

 Telegraphic Commission, under the colonel. Each had a 

 thatched house, and each had two wives — all these Indi- 

 ans are pagans. All were dressed much like the poorer 

 peasants of the Brazilian back country, and all were pleas- 

 ant and well-behaved. The women ran the ferry about 

 as well as the men. They had no cultivated fields, and 

 for weeks they had been living only on game and honey; 

 and they hailed with joy our advent and the quantities 



