160 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



At sunrise we again started. There were occasional 

 stretches of swift, broken water, almost rapids, in the 

 river; everjrwhere the current was swift, and our progress 

 was slow. The prancha was towed at the end of a hawser, 

 and her crew poled. Even thus we only just made the 

 riffle in more than one case. Two or three times cormo- 

 rants and snake-birds, perched on snags in the river or 

 on trees alongside it, permitted the boat to come within 

 a few yards. In one piece of high forest we saw a party 

 of toucans, conspicuous even among the tree tops because 

 of their huge bills and the leisurely expertness with which 

 they crawled, climbed, and hopped among the branches. 

 We went by several fazendas. 



Shortly before noon — January i6 — ^we reached Tapira- 

 poan, the headquarters of the Telegraphic Commission. It 

 was an attractive place, on the river-front, and it was 

 gayly bedecked with flags, not only those of Brazil and 

 the United States, but of all the other American republics, 

 in our honor. There was a large, green square, with trees 

 standing in the middle of it. On one side of this square 

 were the buildings of the Telegraphic Commission, on the 

 other those of a big ranch, of which this is the headquarters. 

 In addition, there were stables, sheds, outhouses, and cor- 

 rals; and there were cultivated fields near by. Milch 

 cows, beef-cattle, oxen, and mules wandered almost at 

 will. There were two or three wagons and carts, and a 

 traction automobile, used in the construction of the tele- 

 graph-line, but not available in the rainy season, at the 

 time of our trip. 



Here we were to begin our trip overland, on pack-mules 

 and pack-oxen, scores of which had been gathered to meet 



