The Highland Wilderness 193 



hide, among the plates, where it reared erect and defied 

 the laughing and applauding company. 



On the morning of the 29th we were rather late in 

 starting, because the rain had continued through the 

 night into the morning, drenching everything. After 

 nightfall there had been some mosquitoes, and the piums 

 were a pest during daylight ; where one bites it leaves a 

 tiny black spot on the skin which lasts for several weeks. 

 In the slippery mud one of the pack-mules fell and in- 

 jured itself so that it had to be abandoned. Soon after 

 starting we came on the telegraph-line, which runs from 

 Cayuba; this was the first time we had seen it. Two 

 Parecis Indians joined us, leading a pack-bullock. They 

 were dressed in hat, shirt, trousers, and sandals, precisely 

 like the ordinary Brazilian caboclos, as the poor back- 

 woods peasants, usually with little white blood in them, 

 are colloquially and half -derisively styled — caboclo being 

 originally a Guarany word meaning "naked savage." 

 These two Indians were in the employ of the Telegraphic 

 Commission, and had been patrolling the telegraph-line. 

 The bullock carried their personal belongings and the 

 tools with which they could repair a break. The com- 

 mission pays the ordinary Indian worker 66 cents a day; 

 a very good worker gets $1, and the chief $1.66. No man 

 gets anything unless he works. Colonel Rondon, by just, 

 kindly, and understanding treatment of these Indians, 

 who previously had often been exploited and maltreated 

 by rubber-gatherers, has made them the loyal friends of 

 the government. He has gathered them at the telegraph 

 stations, where they cultivate fields of mandioc, beans, 

 potatoes, maize, and other vegetables, and where he is 



