The Headwaters of the Paraguay 103 



two-syllabled note. Miller told how on the Orinoco these 

 ibises plunder the nests of the big river-turtles. They 

 are very skilful in finding where the female turtle has 

 laid her eggs, scratch them out of the sand, break the 

 shells, and suck the contents. 



It was astonishing to find so few mosquitoes on these 

 marshes. They did not in any way compare as pests 

 with the mosquitoes on the lower Mississippi, the New 

 Jersey coast, the Red River of the North, or the Koo- 

 tenay. Back in the forest near Corumba the naturalists 

 had found them very bad indeed. Cherrie had spent 

 two or three days on a mountain-top which was bare 

 of forest ; he had thought there would be few mosquitoes, 

 but the long grass harbored them (they often swarm 

 in long grass and bush, even where there is no water), 

 and at night they were such a torment that as soon as 

 the sun set he had to go to bed under his' mosquito- 

 netting. Yet on the vast marshes they were not seri- 

 ously troublesome in most places. I was informed that 

 they were not in any way a bother on the grassy up- 

 lands, the high country north of Cuyaba, which from 

 thence stretches eastward to the coastal region. It is 

 at any rate certain that this inland region of Brazil, in- 

 cluding the state of Matto Grosso, which we were trav- 

 ersing, is a healthy region, excellently adapted to settle- 

 ment; railroads will speedily penetrate it, and then it 

 will witness an astonishing development. 



On the morning of the 28th we reached the home 

 buildings of the great Sao Joao fazenda, the ranch of 

 Senhor Joao da Costa Marques. Our host himself, and 

 his son, Dom Joao the younger, who was state secretary 



