The Headwaters of the Paraguay 133 



great forest state, the wilderness state of the "matto 

 grosso" — the "great wilderness," or, as Australians 

 would call it, "the bush." Then, in 1907, he began to 

 penetrate the unknown region lying to the north and 

 west. He was the head of the exploring expeditions sent 

 out by the Brazilian Government to traverse for the first 

 time this unknown land; to map for the first time the 

 courses of the rivers which from the same divide run 

 into the upper portions of the Tapajos and the Madeira, 

 two of the mighty affluents of the Amazon, and to build 

 telegraph-lines across to the Madeira, where a line of 

 Brazilian settlements, connected by steamboat lines and 

 a railroad, again occurs. Three times he penetrated into 

 this absolutely unknown, Indian-haunted wilderness, be- 

 ing absent for a year or two at a time and suffering 

 every imaginable hardship, before he made his way 

 through to the Madeira and completed the telegraph-line 

 across. The officers and men of the Brazilian Army and 

 the civilian scientists who followed him shared the toil 

 and the credit of the task. Some of his men died of 

 beriberi; some were killed or wounded by the Indians; 

 he himself almost died of fever; again and again his 

 whole party was reduced almost to the last extremity by 

 starvation, disease, hardship, and the overexhaustion due 

 to wearing fatigues. In dealing with the wild, naked 

 savages he showed a combination of fearlessness, wari- 

 ness, good judgment, and resolute patience and kindli- 

 ness. The result was that they ultimately became his 

 firm friends, guarded the telegraph-lines, and helped the 

 few soldiers left at the isolated, widely separated little 

 posts. He and his assistants explored, and mapped for 



