286 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



greenery, where thick-leaved vines covered all things else. 

 Wherever there was a hidden bowlder the surface of the 

 current was broken by waves. In one place, in midstream, 

 a pyramidal rock thrust itself six feet above the surface of 

 the river. On the banks we found fresh Indian sign. 



At home in Vermont Cherrie is a farmer, with a farm 

 of six hundred acres, most of it woodland. As we sat at 

 the foot of the rapids, watching for the last dugouts with 

 their naked paddlers to swing into sight round the bend 

 through the white water, we talked of the northern spring 

 that was just beginning. He sells cream, eggs, poultry, 

 potatoes, honey, occasionally pork and veal; but at this 

 season it was the time for the maple-sugar crop. He has 

 a sugar orchard, where he taps twelve hundred trees and 

 hopes soon to tap as many more in addition. Said Cherrie: 

 "It's a busy time now for Fred Rice" — Fred Rice is the 

 hired man, and in sugar time the Cherrie boys help him 

 with enthusiasm, and, moreover, are paid with exact jus- 

 tice for the work they do. There is much wild life about 

 the farm, although it is near Brattleboro. One night in 

 early spring a bear left his tracks near the sugar-house; 

 and now and then in summer Cherrie has had to sleep in 

 the garden to keep the deer away from the beans, cab- 

 bages, and beets. 



There was not much bird life in the forest, but Cherrie 

 kept getting species new to the collection. At this camp 

 he shot an interesting little ant-thrush. It was the size 

 of a warbler, jet-black, with white under-surfaces of the 

 wings and tail, white on the tail-feathers, and a large spot 

 of white on the back, normally almost concealed, the feath- 

 ers on the back being long and fluffy. When he shot the 



