52 Through the BraziHan Wilderness 



region he has explored have begun to tread the road of 

 civilization. They have taken the first steps toward be- 

 coming Christians. It may seem strange that among the 

 first-fruits of the efforts of a Positivist should be the 

 conversion of those he seeks to benefit to Christianity. 

 But in South America Christianity is at least as much a 

 status as a theology. It represents the indispensable first 

 step upward from savagery. In the wilder and poorer 

 districts men are divided into the two great classes of 

 "Christians" and "Indians." When an Indian becomes 

 a Christian he is accepted into and becomes wholly ab- 

 sorbed or partly assimilated by the crude and simple 

 neighboring civilization, and then he moves up or down 

 like any one else among his fellows. 



Among Colonel Rondon's companions were Captain 

 Amilcar de Magalhaes, Lieutenant Joao Lyra, Lieutenant 

 Joaquin de Mello Filho, and Doctor Euzebio de Oliveira, 

 a geologist. 



The steamers halted; Colonel Rondon and several of 

 his officers, spick and span in their white uniforms, came 

 aboard ; and in the afternoon I visited him on his steamer 

 to talk over our plans. When these had been fully dis- 

 cussed and agreed on we took tea. I happened to mention 

 that one of our naturalists. Miller, had been bitten by a 

 piranha, and the man-eating fish at once became the 

 subject of conversation. Curiously enough, one of the 

 Brazilian taxidermists had also just been severely bitten 

 by a piranha. My new companions had story after story 

 to tell of them. Only three weeks previously a twelve- 

 year-old boy who had gone in swimming near Corumba 

 was attacked, and literally devoured alive by them. Colo- 



