234 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



They have on various occasions caused a good deal of trouble 

 in this manner. 



The third night out from Vilhena we emerged for a 

 moment from the endless close-growing forest in which our 

 poor animals got such scanty pickings, and came to a beau- 

 tiful open country, where grassy slopes, dotted with occa- 

 sional trees, came down on either side of a little brook 

 which was one of the headwaters of the Duvida. It was 

 a pleasure to see the mules greedily bury their muzzles 

 in the pasturage. Our tents were pitched in the open, 

 near a shady tree, which sent out its low branches on every 

 side. At this camp Cherrie shot a lark, very characteristic 

 of the open upland country, and Miller found two bats in 

 the rotten wood of a dead log. He heard them squeaking 

 and dug them out; he could not tell by what method they 

 had gotten in. 



Here Kermit, while a couple of miles from our tents, 

 came across an encampment of Nhambiquaras. There 

 were twenty or thirty of them — men, women, and a few 

 children. Kermit, after the manner of honest folk in the 

 wilderness, advanced ostentatiously in the open, calling out 

 to give warning of his coming. Like surroundings may 

 cause like manners. The early Saxons in England deemed 

 it legal to kill any man who came through the woods with- 

 out shouting or blowing a horn; and in Nhambiquara land 

 at the present time it is against etiquette, and may be 

 very unhealthy, to come through the woods toward stran- 

 gers without loudly announcing one's presence. The Nham- 

 biquaras received Kermit with the utmost cordiality, and 

 gave him pineapple-wine to drink. They were stark naked 

 as usual; they had no hammocks or blankets, and their 



