STUPID QUESTIONS 
Benedicto greatly objected to carry the fifteen pounds 
weight of glass negatives, but he did not mind at all 
carrying a lot of useless things of his own, which weighed 
an extra twenty pounds or so! 
Since my return I have been constantly asked why, 
when we were starving, we did not eat the grass in the 
forest; why we did not feed on the leaves or roots of 
the trees. If we could find no fruit, why did we not eat 
monkeys or birds or other animals? why did we not dig 
for worms and feed on them? 
As I have already stated, there were no worms in 
the forest because of the ants, which allow no insect to 
be underground near the surface. As for the grass, it 
takes no very intelligent person to see that it cannot 
exist under the trees of the tropical forest. If a few 
blades of grass are to be found on the edge of streamlets 
it does not follow that you can eat them. That grass 
is usually poisonous. The same may be said of the leaves 
and roots of trees, even admitting that you could reach 
the former —which is not the case, as the leaves are 
usually at a great height upon the trees, and when you 
are starving you have not the strength to climb up. It 
also follows that where there is no edible fruit there can 
be no birds or monkeys, as animals generally have enough 
sense not to settle where there is nothing to eat. 
Again, even allowing that some rare trees, the fruit 
of which was edible, were to be found, it does not do to 
lose sight of the fact that you may be passing under that 
tree at the season when it is not bearing fruit, as fruit-trees 
even in tropical countries do not always bear fruit at a 
time to suit the convenience of the passing traveller. 
As I have said, the country we were traversing was 
there hilly and rocky, and we were cutting across the 
head-waters of numerous tributaries, first of the Tapajoz 
River, then of the Madeira River. The tiny water¬ 
courses, most of them only a few inches wide, descend 
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