UNCOMFORTABLE HOMES 
if afraid to spoil them. Never did you perceive a smile 
upon their long-drawn countenances. When they greeted 
one another, they laid their bodies close together as if 
about to dance the tango , and patted each other repeatedly 
on the shoulder-blades, turning their heads away as if to 
avoid their reciprocal evil odour. It is not the fashion in 
any part of Brazil to shake hands. Some say it is because 
of the unpleasant feeling of touching sweating hands; 
others suggest that it is to prevent the contagion of the 
many skin complaints from which people suffer. When 
they do shake hands, with a stranger, for instance, one 
might as well be grasping the very dead hand of a very 
dead man; it is done in so heartless a manner. 
For a consideration they reluctantly gave a stranger 
what little they possessed, but they had not the remotest 
idea of the value of things. In one farmhouse you were 
charged the equivalent of a few pence for an egg or a 
chicken; in the next farm a small fortune was demanded 
for similar articles of convenience. Men, women, chil¬ 
dren, dogs, pigs, and fowls, all lived — not happily, but 
most unhappily — together. 
No sooner were we able to saddle the animals and 
pack the baggage and pay our hostess, than we tried to 
make our escape from that musical farm. But luck was 
hard on me that day. One mule was lost, and a second 
received a terrible gash in his hind quarters from a 
powerful kick from another mule. 
We went on among low, fairly grassy hills to the west, 
west-northwest, and to the east of us. We still had before 
us the Serra de Gallos — a flat-topped tableland some 
12 kilometres in diameter on the summit, where it was 
almost circular. Its deeply grooved sides showed clearly 
the great work of erosion which had occurred and was 
still taking place in those regions. With the exception of 
two spurs, which projected on the west and east sides of 
the plateau, its sky-line was quite clean and flat. 
vol. i. —5 65 
