170 THE HIGHLAND WILDERNESS [chap, vi 



torrid zone. There were no mosquitoes, so that we 

 never put up our nets when we went to bed ; but 

 wrapped ourselves in our blankets, and slept soundly 

 through the cool, pleasant nights. Surely in the future 

 this region wiU be the home of a healthy, highly civilized 

 population. It is good for cattle-raising, and the valleys 

 are fitted for agriculture. From June to September the 

 nights are often really cold. Any sound northern race 

 could live here ; and in such a land, with such a climate, 

 there would be much joy of living. 



On these plains the Telegraphic Commission uses 

 motor-trucks ; and these now served to relieve the mules 

 and oxen ; for some of them, especially among the oxen, 

 already showed the effects of the strain. Travelling in 

 a wild country with a pack-train is not easy on the pack- 

 animals. It was strange to see these big motor-vans 

 out in the wilderness where there was not a settler, not 

 a civilized man except the employees of the Tele- 

 graphic Commission. They were handled by Lieutenant 

 Lauriadd, who, with Lieutenant Mello, had taken special 

 charge of our transport service ; both were exceptionally 

 good and competent men. 



The following day we again rode on across the Plan 

 Alto. In the early afternoon, in the midst of a down- 

 pour of rain, we crossed the divide between the basins 

 of the Paraguay and the Amazon. That evening we 

 camped on a brook whose waters ultimately ran into 

 the Tapajos. The rain feU throughout the afternoon, 

 now lightly, now heavily, and the mule-train did not 

 get up until dark. But enough tents and flies were 

 pitched to shelter all of us. Fires were lit, and — after 

 a fourteen hours' fast — we feasted royally on beans and 

 rice and pork and beef, seated around ox- skins spread 

 upon the ground. The sky cleared ; the stars blazed 



