ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
grey houses, two large white buildings, and some tem¬ 
porary constructions of mud with palm-leaf roofs, all of 
them situated on a high bank. The place was at the 
entrance of a wide channel, dry and sandy. When this 
was filled by the stream at high water a long island was 
formed. 
Bella Vista was a great point for us, for there we 
should meet steam navigation again, Colonel Brazil hav¬ 
ing purchased a handsome steamer which performed the 
service between that place and Belem (Para). 
I broke down altogether while there, and was nursed 
with the tenderest care by the family of Mr. Lage, who 
was in charge of that trading station. It is difficult to 
imagine more kind-hearted, generous people than these 
exiles in those deadly regions. All the employes at the 
station were in a pitiable condition, suffering from 
malarial fever. 
When the steamer Commandante Macedo arrived — 
she came only once a month in order to bring down the 
rubber — I went in her to the first town we had seen 
since leaving Diamantino, a place called Itaituba. It 
seemed to us as if we had dropped into London or Paris 
again, although the place consisted merely of a few red- 
roofed houses, the walls of which were gaily coloured, 
bright yellow, green, or white. Palm trees of great size 
showed here and there beyond the row of buildings as 
we approached the place on its high site. 
Prominent along the river front were magnificently 
vigorous mango trees, with luxuriant foliage. A brick 
and stone church, unfinished, was visible, with a great 
pile of bricks in front, waiting in vain for money and 
labour to complete it. The grand square, with its pretty 
Intendencia coloured bright blue, formed the end, on the 
west, of that most important “ town ” on the Tapajoz. 
In the centre of the square was a well-executed bust of 
Correa. 
328 
