8 THE START [chap, i 



kind enough to take great personal interest in my trip, 

 informed me that he had arranged that on the head- 

 waters of the Paraguay, at the town of Caceres, I 

 would be met by a Brazilian Army Colonel, himselt 

 chiefly Indian by blood. Colonel Rondon. Colonel 

 Rondon has been for a quarter of a century the fore- 

 most explorer of the Brazilian hinterland. He was at 

 the time in Manaos, but his lieutenants were in Caceres, 

 and had been notified that we were coming. 



More important still, Mr. Lauro MiiUer — who is not 

 only an efficient public servant, but a man of wide 

 cultivation, with a quahty about him that reminded me 

 of John Hay— offered to help me make my trip of much 

 more consequence than I had originally intended. He 

 has taken a keen interest in the exploration and develop- 

 ment of the interior of Brazil, and he beheved that my 

 expedition could be used as a means toward spreading 

 abroad a more general knowledge of the country. He 

 told me that he would co-operate with me in every way 

 if I cared to undertake the leadership of a serious 

 expedition into the unexplored portion of western 

 Matto Grosso, and to attempt the descent of a river 

 which flowed nobody knew whither, but which the best 

 informed men beheved would prove to be a very big 

 river, utterly unknown to geographers. I eagerly and 

 gladly accepted, for I felt that with such help the trip 

 could be made of much scientific value, and that a 

 substantial addition could be made to the geographical 

 knowledge of one of the least-known parts of South 

 America. Accordingly, it was arranged that Colonel 

 Rondon and some assistants and scientists should meet 

 me at or below Corumba, and that we should attempt 

 the descent of the river, of which they had already 

 come across the headwaters. 



