198 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



they draw the wage." Kermit had with him the same 

 copy of KipHng's poems which he had carried through 

 Africa. At these falls there was one sunset of angry splen- 

 dor; and we contrasted this going down of the sun, through 

 broken rain-clouds and over leagues of wet tropical forest, 

 with the desert sunsets we had seen in Arizona and So- 

 nora, and along the Guaso Nyiro north and west of Mount 

 Kenia, when the barren mountains were changed into 

 flaming "ramparts of slaughter and peril" standing above 

 "the wine-dark flats below." 



It rained during most of the day after our arrival at 

 Utiarity. Whenever there was any let-up the men promptly 

 came forth from their houses and played headball with 

 the utmost vigor; and we would listen to their shrill un- 

 dulating cries of applause and triumph until we also grew 

 interested and strolled over to look on. They are more 

 infatuated with the game than an American boy is with 

 baseball or football. It is an extraordinary thing that this 

 strange and exciting game should be played by, and only 

 by, one little tribe of Indians in what is almost the very 

 centre of South America. If any traveller or ethnologist 

 knows of a tribe elsewhere that plays a similar game, I 

 wish he would let me know. To play it demands great 

 activity, vigor, skill, and endurance. Looking at the 

 strong, supple bodies of the players, and at the number of 

 children roundabout, it seemed as if the tribe must be in 

 vigorous health; yet the Parecis have decreased in num- 

 bers, for measles and smallpox have been fatal to them. 



By the evening the rain was coming down more heav- 

 ily than ever. It was not possible to keep the moisture 

 out of our belongings; everything became mouldy except 



