ACROSS NHAMBIQUARA LAND 223 



iguana promptly followed it. Miller also told of the stone 

 gods and altars and temples he had seen in the great Co- 

 lombian forests, monuments of strange civilizations which 

 flourished and died out ages ago, and of which all mem- 

 ory has vanished. He and Cherrie told of giant rivers 

 and waterfalls, and of forests never penetrated, and moun- 

 tains never ascended by civilized man; and of bloody rev- 

 olutions that devastated the settled regions. Listening to 

 them I felt that they could write "Tales of Two Natu- 

 ralists" that would be worth reading. 



They were short of literature, by the way — a party 

 such as ours always needs books — and as Kermit's read- 

 ing-matter consisted chiefly of Camoens and other Portu- 

 guese, or else Brazilian, writers, I strove to supply the 

 deficiency with spare volumes of Gibbon. At the end of 

 our march we were usually far ahead of the mule-train, 

 and the rain was also usually falling. Accordingly we 

 would sit about under trees, or under a shed or lean-to, if 

 there was one, each solemnly reading a volume of Gibbon 

 — and no better reading can be found. In my own case, 

 as I had been having rather a steady course of Gibbon, 

 I varied him now and then with a volume of Arsene Lupin 

 lent me by Kermit. 



There were many swollen rivers to cross at this point 

 of our journey. Some we waded at fords. Some we 

 crossed by rude bridges. The larger ones, such as the 

 Juina, we crossed by ferry, and when the approaches were 

 swampy, and the river broad and swift, many hours might 

 be consumed in getting the mule-train, the loose bullocks, 

 and the ox-cart over. We had few accidents, although we 

 once lost a ferry-load of provisions, which was quite a 



