IN THE VALLEY OF THE RIO CAMAPUAO. 133 



It was a strange mixture of the picturesque, the 

 grand, and the weird, at a time of the greatest personal 

 discomfort. 



I spent a great part of the next day (Sunday) in a 

 manner which, though absolutely necessary, was about as 

 far from a congenial occupation to me as anything could 

 be, viz. drying my drenching garments of the previous day 

 in the fitful sunshine. Twenty times or more I had to take 

 them all in on the approach of numerous showers, and then 

 hang them out again (on the poles we have had erected 

 for that purpose) when the showers had passed. I know 

 nothing more trying and irksome than this sort of 

 occupation, when one is endeavouring to write or read ; 

 but the result was that on Monday we had dry things to 

 put on. 



January 7. — There was a funeral to-day of a poor man 

 who lived, or rather died, in a hut close by. The procession 

 of men and women left the house singing, as in the other 

 funeral I told you of. They were all dressed in their usual 

 clothes, being, I suppose, too poor for anything else ; and, 

 in fact, we were asked to help them last night, which we 

 did. The dead man was simply laid on a bamboo bier 

 and-covered over with a sheet, the bier being carried by 

 four men. How they managed to get along the road I 

 cannot imagine. They must have had hard work to carry 

 their burden, for you never saw such a state as the road is 

 in now ; in fact, all traffic, even on horseback, is stopped. 

 One can only go on foot, and risk either being waist-deep 

 in mud or else force one's way through the bushes at the 

 side of the road. Captain Burton states that Brazilians 

 have told him that men who travel by such weary ways 

 need no further process of punishment. 



I must now mention the various fruits and vegetables 



