I90 Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



lonely little town. The tomb of the old colonial explorer 

 still stands in the ruined cathedral, where the forest has 

 once more come to its own. But civilization is again ad- 

 vancing to reclaim the lost town and to revive the memory 

 of the wilderness wanderer who helped to found it. 

 Colonel Rondon has named a river after Franco ; a range 

 of mountains has also been named after him; and the 

 colonel, acting for the Brazilian Government, has es- 

 tablished a telegraph station in what was once the palace 

 of the captain-general. 



Our northward trail led along the high ground a 

 league or two to the east of the northward-flowing Rio 

 Sacre. Each night we camped on one of the small 

 tributary brooks that fed it. Fiala, Kermit, and I occu- 

 pied one tent. In the daytime the "pium" flies, vicious 

 little sand-flies, became bad enough to make us finally use 

 gloves and head-nets. There were many heavy rains, 

 which made the travelling hard for the mules. The soil 

 was more often clay than sand, and it was slippery when 

 wet. The weather was overcast, and there was usually 

 no oppressive heat even at noon. At intervals along the 

 trail we came on the staring skull and bleached skeleton 

 of a mule or ox. Day after day we rode forward across 

 endless flats of grass and of low open scrubby forest, the 

 trees standing far apart and in most places being but 

 little higher than the head of a horseman. Some of 

 them carried blossoms, white, orange, yellow, pink ; and 

 there were many flowers, the most beautiful being the 

 morning-glories. Among the trees were bastard rubber- 

 trees, and dwarf palmetto ; if the latter grew more than 

 a few feet high their tops were torn and dishevelled by 



