A NEW HAT 
musical sands, such as we had found before. Everywhere 
on those beaches I noticed the wonderful miniature sand 
plants, of which I made a complete collection. 
As we went down the river we came to one or two 
seringueiros 3 huts, and to a store belonging to our friend 
the dying Jew, who rejoiced in the name of Moses. As 
he had taken all the stuff with him in the trading boat 
in order to exchange it for rubber from the collectors, 
he had left nothing in the store except a cheap straw 
hat. 
As my hat by that time had lost most of its brim, 
and the top of it had got loose and was moving up and 
down in the breeze, I thought I would not lose the oppor¬ 
tunity of getting new headgear. So the purchase was 
made there and then, and thus fashionably attired I 
started once more down stream. 
We passed on the way most impressive sand banks and 
beaches — 500, 700, and one 1,500 metres long. The river 
in some spots was 1,000 metres wide. A great island, 
4,000 metres in length — Bertino Miranda Island — was 
then passed, with a beautiful spit of sand fifteen feet high 
at its southern end. Hillocks were visible first on the left 
bank, then on the right. Other elongated sand accumu¬ 
lations of great length were found beyond the big island, 
one, a huge tail of sand, extending towards the north for 
1,000 metres. Beyond those accumulations the river was 
not less than 1,500 metres across, and there an immense 
beach of really extraordinary beauty ran on the right side 
for a length of one and a half kilometres. 
On that beach we halted for lunch. In the afternoon 
we continued, between banks on either side of alluvial 
formation, principally silts and clay, light grey in colour 
or white. In fact, the soil in the section directly below 
the higher terrace of the great central plateau of Matto 
Grosso was formed by extensive alluvial accumulations, 
which had made an immense terrace extending right across 
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