Across Nhambiquara Land 231 



neyed onward, under the pitiless glare of the sun or 

 through blinding torrents of rain, we passed desolate little 

 graves by the roadside. They marked the last resting 

 places of men who had died by fever, or dysentery, or 

 Nhambiquara arrows. We raised our hats as our mules 

 plodded slowly by through the sand. On each grave was 

 a frail wooden cross, and this and the paling round about 

 were already stained by the weather as gray as the tree- 

 trunks of the stunted forest that stretched endlessly on 

 every side. 



The skeletons of mules and oxen were frequent along 

 the road. Now and then we came across a mule or ox 

 which had been abandoned by Captain Amilcar's party, 

 ahead of us. The animal had been left with the hope that 

 when night came it would follow along the trail to 

 water. Sometimes it did so. Sometimes we found it 

 dead, or standing motionless waiting for death. From 

 time to time we had to leave behind one of our own 

 mules. 



It was not always easy to recognize what pasturage 

 the mules would accept as good. One afternoon we 

 pitched camp by a tiny rivulet, in the midst of the scrubby 

 upland forest; a camp, by the way, where the piums, the 

 small, biting flies, were a torment during the hours of 

 daylight, while after dark their places were more than 

 taken by the diminutive gnats which the Brazilians ex- 

 pressively term "polvora," or powder, and which get 

 through the smallest meshes of a mosquito-net. The feed 

 was so scanty, and the cover so dense, at this spot that I 

 thought we would have great difficulty in gathering the 

 mules next morning. But we did not. A few hours 



