ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
the capital of Goyaz. I went in search of him, stumbling 
along the terrible roads with deep holes and pools of water 
and mud. As luck would have it, I was able to purchase 
from him, that very same evening, a number of excellent 
mules, which he very generously offered to place at my 
disposal without payment. Also he promised to supply 
me with two reliable men — a job not at all easy in that 
particular part of Brazil. 
Mr. Louis Schnoor, a Brazilian of German extraction, 
was a godsend to me. Thanks to him, I returned that 
night quite happy to the miserable hotel. Happy, be¬ 
cause in less than half an hour I had arranged to leave 
that pestilential hole the following day. Mr. Schnoor 
had kindly promised that he would send me, at eleven 
o’clock the next morning, in a special train to the end of 
the line in construction, some 45 kilometres farther north. 
In a town of gentle folks like Araguary, the luxury of 
sleeping with one’s window open could not be indulged in, 
especially as nearly all the houses were one storey high. 
So the night was rendered particularly oppressive and 
long, tormented as I was in bed by its innumerable 
inhabitants, which stung me all over. I had taken the 
precaution to spread a waterproof sheet under my own 
blankets on the bed, but that, too, proved ineffective. 
Mosquitoes were numerous. 
No sanitary arrangements to speak of existed in 
Araguary, so that everything was flung out of the 
windows into the streets, which made walking about the 
town most objectionable. The odour everywhere was 
revolting, as can well be imagined. The city was never¬ 
theless considered by the natives as all that is most perfect 
in the way of civilization, for not only did it possess a 
few anaemic electric lights, so far apart as to be a nuisance 
instead of a help in seeing one’s way about, but also, 
behold! it actually boasted of a spasmodic cinematograph. 
There were some 500 houses, all counted, at Araguary, all 
50 
