42 Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



what Sir Harry Johnston calls the really material devil, 

 the devil of evil wild nature in the tropics, has been 

 waged with marked success only during the last two 

 decades. The men, in the United States, in England, 

 France, Germany, Italy — the men like Doctor Cruz in 

 Rio Janeiro and Doctor Vital Brazil in Sao Paulo — 

 who work experimentally within and without the labora- 

 tory in their warfare against the disease and death bear- 

 ing insects and microbes, are the true leaders in- the fight 

 to make the tropics the home of civilized man. 



Late on the evening of the second day of our trip, 

 just before midnight, we reached Concepcion. On this 

 day, when we stopped for wood or to get provisions — 

 at picturesque places, where the women from rough 

 mud and thatched cabins were washing clothes in the 

 river, or where ragged horsemen stood gazing at us 

 from the bank, or where dark, well-dressed ranchmen 

 stood in front of red-roofed houses — ^we caught many 

 fish. They belonged to one of the most formidable 

 genera of fish in the world, the piranha or cannibal fish, 

 the fish that eats men when it can get the chance. Far- 

 ther north there are species of small piranha that go in 

 schools. At this point on the Paraguay the piranha 

 do not seem to go in regular schools, but they swarm 

 in all the waters and attain a length of eighteen inches 

 or over. They are the most ferocious fish in the world. 

 Even the most formidable fish, the sharks or the barra- 

 cudas, usually attack things smaller than themselves. But 

 the piranhas habitually attack things much larger than 

 themselves. They will snap a finger off a hand incau- 

 tiously trailed in the water; they mutilate swimmers — 



