164 THE HIGHLAND WILDERNESS [chap, vi 



a very open forest of low, twisted trees, bearing a super- 

 ficial likeness to the cross-timbers of Texas and Okla- 

 homa. It is as well fitted for stock-raising as Oklahoma ; 

 and there is also much fine agricultural land, while the 

 river will ultimately jdeld electric power. It is a fine 

 country for settlement. The heat is great at noon, but 

 the nights are not uncomfortable. We were supposed 

 to be in the middle of the rainy season, but hitherto 

 most of the days had been fine, varied with showers. 

 The astonishing thing was the absence of mosquitoes. 

 Insect pests that work by day can be stood, and especially 

 by settlers, because they are far less serious foes in the 

 clearings than in the woods. The mosquitoes and other 

 night foes offer the really serious and unpleasant problem, 

 because they break one's rest. Hitherto, during our 

 travels up the Paraguay and its tributaries, in this 

 level, marshy, tropical region of western BrazU, we had 

 practically not been bothered by mosquitoes at aU in 

 our home camps. Out in the woods they were at times 

 a serious nuisance, and Cherrie and MiUer had been 

 subjected to real torment by them during some of then- 

 special expeditions ; but there were practically none on 

 the ranches and in our camps iu the open fields by the 

 river, even when marshes were close by. I was puzzled 

 — and dehghted — by then- absence. Settlers need not 

 be deterred from coming to this region by the fear of 

 insect foes. 



This does not mean that there are not such foes. 

 Outside of the clearings, and of the beaten tracks of 

 travel, they teem. There are ticks, poisonous ants, 

 wasps — of which some species are really serious menaces 

 — biting flies, and gnats. I merely mean that, unlike so 

 many other tropical regions, this particular region is, 

 from the standpoint of the settler and the ordinary 



