290 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



been known to rubber-gatherers, and recently a commis- 

 sion from the government of Amazonas had part-way as- 

 cended one branch of it — not as far as the rubber-gatherers 

 had gone, and, as it turned out, not the branch we came 

 down. 



Two of our men were down with fever. Another man, 

 Julio, a fellow of powerful frame, was utterly worthless, 

 being an inborn, lazy shirk with the heart of a ferocious 

 cur in the body of a bullock. The others were good men, 

 some of them very good indeed. They were under the 

 immediate supervision of Pedrinho Craveiro, who was first- 

 class in every way. 



This camp was very lovely. It was on the edge of a 

 bay, into which the river broadened immediately below 

 the rapids. There was a beach of white sand, where we 

 bathed and washed our clothes. All around us, and across 

 the bay, and on both sides of the long water-street made 

 by the river, rose the splendid forest. There were flocks 

 of parakeets colored green, blue, and red. Big toucans 

 called overhead, lustrous green-black in color, with white 

 throats, red gorgets, red-and-yellow tail coverts, and huge 

 black-and-yellow bills. Here the soil was fertile; it will 

 be a fine site for a coff^ee-plantation when this region is 

 open to settlement. Surely such a rich and fertile land 

 cannot be permitted to remain idle, to lie as a tenantless 

 wilderness, while there are such teeming swarms of human 

 beings in the overcrowded, overpeopled countries of the 

 Old World. The very rapids and waterfalls which now 

 make the navigation of the river so difficult and danger- 

 ous would drive electric trolleys up and down its whole 

 length and far out on either side, and run mills and fac- 



