ACROSS NHAMBIQUARA LAND 221 



great heat we felt quite cold in our wet clothes, and gladly 

 crowded round a fire which was kindled under a thatched 

 shed, beside the cabin of the ferrymen. This ferry-boat 

 was so small that it could only take one mule, or at most 

 two, at a time. The mules and a span of six oxen drag- 

 ging an ox-cart, which we had overtaken, were ferried 

 slowly to the farther side that afternoon, as there was no 

 feed on the hither bank, where we ourselves camped. The 

 ferryman was a soldier in the employ of the Telegraphic 

 Commission. His good-looking, pleasant-mannered wife, 

 evidently of both Indian and negro blood, was with him, 

 and was doing all she could do as a housekeeper, in the 

 comfortless little cabin, with its primitive bareness of fur- 

 niture and fittings. 



Here we saw Captain Amilcar, who had come back to 

 hurry up his rear-guard. We stood ankle-deep in mud and 

 water, by the swollen river, while the rain beat on us, and 

 enjoyed a few minutes' talk with the cool, competent of- 

 ficer who was doing a difficult job with such workmanlike 

 efficiency. He had no poncho, and was wet through, but 

 was much too busy in getting his laden oxen forward to 

 think of personal discomfort. He had had a good deal of 

 trouble with his mules, but his oxen were still in fair shape. 



After leaving the Juruena the ground became some- 

 what more hilly, and the scrubby forest was less open, 

 but otherwise there was no change in the monotonous, and 

 yet to me rather attractive, landscape. The ant-hills, and 

 the ant-houses in the trees — arboreal ant-hills, so to speak 

 — were as conspicuous as ever. The architects of some 

 were red ants, of others black ants; and others, which werej 

 on the whole the largest, had been built by the white ants,j 



