CHAPTER IV 
The Terminus of the Railway — An Unpleasant Incident — The 
Purchase of Animals — On the March with the Caravan 
A GREAT crowd had assembled at the station. The 
train had hardly stopped when my car was invaded 
by boisterous people,, who embraced me and patted 
me on the back in the most approved Brazilian style. 
Before I could inquire who they were, one fellow, more 
boisterous than the others, informed me that he had pur¬ 
chased a great many mules for me, that he had engaged 
men for me, and also procured riding and pack saddles, 
harness, implements, clothing, and bedding for the men he 
had engaged, and I do not know what else. Everything 
was paid for. I could return the sum paid out the next 
day. Another man said he had already prepared a 
sumptuous apartment for me in the best hotel in the 
town. 
When asked who had instructed them to make such 
arrangements, they were vague, and on being pressed for 
an answer gave names of people of whose existence I 
was perfectly ignorant. Before I could realize what all 
this meant, I discovered, much to my annoyance, that all 
my baggage had been taken out of the train and had 
been conveyed to the hotel. I was therefore compelled 
to proceed there myself, in the company of my new 
“ friends,” who shouted everything they had to say at the 
top of their voices, so that I should not fail to understand. 
It was already night, and the streets of the town were in 
such a terrible condition that the overladen carriage — 
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