106 HEADWATERS OF THE PARAGUAY 



The two folios were in a box of native cedar. No gift 

 more appropriate, none that I would in the future value 

 more as a reminder of my stay in Matto Grosso, could 

 have been given me. 



All that afternoon the rain continued. It was still 

 pouring in torrents when we left the Cuyaba for the 

 Sao Lourenijo and steamed up the latter a few miles 

 before anchoring ; Dom Joao the younger had accom- 

 panied us in his launch. The little river steamer was 

 of very open buUd, as is necessary in such a hot chmate; 

 and to keep things dry necessitated also keeping the 

 atmosphere stifling. The German taxidermist who was 

 with Colonel Rondon's party, Reinish, a very good fellow 

 from Vienna, sat on a stool, alternately drenched with 

 rain and sweltering with heat, and muttered to himself : 

 " Ach, Schweinerei !" 



Two small caymans, of the common species, with 

 prominent eyes, where at the bank where we moored, 

 and betrayed an astonishing and stupid tameness. 

 Neither the size of the boat nor the commotion caused 

 by the paddles in any way affected them. They lay 

 inshore, not twenty feet from us, half out of water ; 

 they paid not the shghtest heed to our presence, and 

 only reluctantly left when repeatedly poked at, and 

 after having been repeatedly hit with clods of mud and 

 sticks ; and even then one first crawled up on shore, to 

 find out if thereby he could not rid himself of the armoy- 

 ance we caused him. 



Next morning it was still raining, but we set off on a 

 hunt, anyway, going afoot. A couple of brown cama- 

 radas led the way, and Colonel Rondon, Dom Joao, 

 Kermit, and I, followed. The incessant downpour 

 speedily wet us to the skin. We made our way slowly 

 through the forest, the machetes playing right and left. 



