76 A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



this place, we found it on our arrival, and, choosing a spot, 

 we began to pitch camp, unloading the baggage with the 

 help of two of the villagers and some boys. In an hour 

 we had fixed up the two tents. Ours is ten feet square ; 

 the luggage tent, which the men will also use, is circular, 

 twenty feet in diameter. 



Our camp is some two hundred yards from the road, 

 on the grassy slope of a hill in a small side valley. There 

 is a good stream of pure water just below us. I sent 

 Antonio for fowls, while I fetched water and built a fire to 

 prepare some dinner ; but at 6 p.m. one of the men who 

 had assisted us in pitching camp came to invite us to dine 

 at his hut. We accepted, and were joined by my former 

 camarade Fortunato, who had just arrived, being now 

 employed as courier to the staff. 



The benevolent villager, yclept Aleixo Tavares de Car- 

 valho, gave us an excellent dinner of fowls, etc., laid out 

 on a vacant bedstead, his wife and four small children 

 serving us. He refused payment, saying it is his duty to 

 entertain strangers. I was sorry, as he appears poor ; but he 

 is to supply us with fowls and other things. After dinner 

 we returned to camp, and an elder son, another Antonio, 

 who had been keeping guard, went home, only, however, to 

 return before long with his father to have a long talk ; but 

 I left them principally to the camarades. Rolling my- 

 self up in my poncho and rug, 1 laid down on a couple of 

 rush mats, with my revolver under the satchel that formed 

 my pillow, and was asleep in a minute. 



The fire was lit early next morning, and I made some 

 coffee (from condensed extract) and soup (from a tablet of 

 riz au gras julienne and Brand's essence) for the benefit 

 of the courier, who had to go off early, as well as for our- 

 selves ; then the man prepared breakfast, which consisted 



