220 Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



elapsed, when the Telegraphic Commission not only de- 

 scended, but for the first time accurately placed and 

 mapped its course. 



There were several houses on the rise of the farther 

 bank, all with thatched roofs, some of them with walls of 

 upright tree-trunks, some of them daub and wattle. Into 

 one of the latter, with two rooms, we took our belongings. 

 The sand-flies were bothersome at night, coming through 

 the interstices in the ordinary mosquito-nets. The first 

 night they did this I got no sleep until morning, when it 

 was cool enough for me to roll myself in my blanket and 

 put on a head-net. Afterward we used fine nets of a kind 

 of cheese-cloth. They were hot, but they kept out all, 

 or almost all, of the sand-flies and other small tormentors. 



Here we overtook the rearmost division of Captain 

 Amilcar's bullock-train. Our own route had diverged, in 

 order to pass the great falls. Captain Amilcar had come 

 direct, overtaking the pack-oxen, which had left Tapira- 

 poan before we did, laden with material for the Diivida 

 trip. He had brought the oxen through in fine shape, 

 losing only three beasts with their loads, and had himself 

 left the Juruena the morning of the day we reached 

 there. His weakest animals left that evening, to make the 

 march by moonlight; and as it was desirable to give 

 them thirty-six hours' start, we halted for a day on the 

 banks of the river. It was not a wasted day. In addition 

 to bathing and washing our clothes, the naturalists made 

 some valuable additions to the collection — including a 

 boldly marked black, blue, and white jay — ^and our photo- 

 graphs were developed and our writing brought abreast 

 of the date. Travelling through a tropical wilderness in 



