The Highland Wilderness 175 



In addition to the pack-animals we all had riding-mules. 

 The first day we journeyed about twelve miles, then cross- 

 ing the Sepotuba and camping beside it, below a series of 

 falls, or rather rapids. The country was level. It was a 

 great natural pasture, covered with a very open forest of 

 low, twisted trees, bearing a superficial likeness to the 

 cross-timbers of Texas and Oklahoma. It is as well fitted 

 for stock-raising as Oklahoma; and there is also much 

 fine agricultural land, while the river will ultimately yield 

 electric power. It is a fine country for settlement. The 

 heat is great at noon; but the nights are not uncom- 

 fortable. We were supposed to be in the middle of the 

 rainy season, but hitherto most of the days had been fine, 

 varied with showers. The astonishing thing was the 

 absence of mosquitoes. Insect pests that work by day 

 can be stood, and especially by settlers, because they are 

 far less serious foes in the clearings than in the woods. 

 The mosquitoes and other night foes offer the really 

 serious and unpleasant problem, because they break one's 

 rest. Hitherto, during our travels up the Paraguay and 

 its tributaries, in this level, marshy tropical region of 

 western Brazil, we had practically not been bothered by 

 mosquitoes at all, in our home camps. Out in the woods 

 they were at times a serious nuisance, and Cherrie and 

 Miller had been subjected to real torment by them during 

 some of their special expeditions; but there were prac- 

 tically none on the ranches and in our camps in the open 

 fields by the river, even when marshes were close by. I 

 was puzzled — ^and delighted — ^by their absence. Settlers 

 need not be deterred from coming to this region by the 

 fear of insect foes. 



