168 THE HIGHLAND WILDERNESS [chap, vi 



whose trunks bellied into huge swellings. There were 

 towering trees with buttressed trunks, whose leaves 

 made a fretwork against the sky far overhead. Gorgeous 

 red-and-green trogons, with long tails, perched motion- 

 less on the lower branches and uttered a loud, thrice- 

 repeated whistle. We heard the caUing of the false 

 beU-bird, which is grey instead of white like the true 

 bell-birds ; it keeps among the very topmost branches. 

 Heavy rain fell shortly after we reached our camping- 

 place. 



Next morning at sunrise we climbed a steep slope to 

 the edge of the Parecis plateau, at a level of about two 

 thousand feet above the sea. We were on the Plan 

 Alto, the high central plain of Brazil, the healthy land 

 of dry air, of cool nights, of clear, running brooks. The 

 sun was directly behind us when we topped the rise. 

 Reining in, we looked back over the vast Paraguayan 

 marshes, shimmering in the long morning Ughts. Then, 

 turning again, we rode forward, casting shadows far 

 before us. It was twenty miles to the next water, and 

 in hot weather the journey across this waterless, shade- 

 less, sandy stretch of country is hard on the mules and 

 oxen. But on this day the sky speedily grew overcast 

 and a cool wind blew in our faces as we travelled at a 

 quick, running walk over the immense roUing plain. 

 The ground was sandy ; it was covered with grass and 

 with a sparse growth of stunted, twisted trees, never 

 more than a few feet high. There were rheas — ostriches 

 — and small pampas- deer on this plain ; the coloration 

 of the rheas made it difficult to see them at a distance, 

 whereas the bright red coats of the little deer, and their 

 uplifted flags as they ran, advertised them afar off. We 

 also saw the footprints of cougars and of the small- 

 toothed, big, red wolf. Cougars are the most inveterate 



