224 ACROSS NHAMBIQUARA LAND [chap, vii 



taining the headsprings of the Ananas, we left this type 

 of country and began to march through thick forest, not 

 very high. There was httle feed for the animals on the 

 chapadao. There was less in the forest. Moreover, the 

 continual heavy rains made the travelling difficult and 

 laborious for them, and they weakened. However, a 

 couple of marches before we reached Tres Burity, where 

 there is a big ranch with hundreds of cattle, we were 

 met by ten fresh pack-oxen, and our serious difficulties 

 were over. 



There were piums in plenty by day, but neither 

 mosquitoes nor sand-flies by night ; and for us the trip 

 was very pleasant, save for moments of anxiety about 

 the mules. The loose bullocks furnished us abundance 

 of fresh beef, although, as was inevitable in the 

 circumstances, of a decidedly tough quality. One of 

 the biggest of the bullocks was attacked one night by a 

 vampire bat, and next morning his withers were literally 

 bathed in blood. 



With the chapadao we said good-bye to the curious, 

 gregarious, and crepuscular or nocturnal spiders which 

 we found so abundant along the line of the telegraph- 

 wire. They have oiFered one of the small problems with 

 which the Commission has had to deal. They are not 

 common in the dry season. They swarm during the 

 rains ; and, when their tough webs are wet, those that 

 lead from the wire to the ground sometimes effectually 

 short-circuit the wire. They have on various occasions 

 caused a good deal of trouble in this manner. 



The third night out from Vilhena we emerged for a 

 moment from the endless close -growing forest in which 

 our poor animals got such scanty pickings, and came to 

 a beautiful open country, where grassy slopes, dotted 

 with occasional trees, came down on either side of a 



