ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
fusal to do the work except in their own stupid way, so 
that in order to save time, expense, and trouble I had to 
conform, much against my will, to the Brazilian method. 
It was an impossibility to induce a Brazilian of the interior 
to agree that any other way of doing anything was better 
or even as good as his own. 
A painful phase of human existence, as the country 
became more and more sparsely inhabited, was the num¬ 
ber, relative to the population, of cases of sexual insanity, 
due naturally to the great difficulty of intercourse. We 
will not refer to sexual vices — extremely common — 
which reduced the few inhabitants to a state of absolute 
idiocy. Thus at Laza farm there were only three women 
and no men. They were all of a certain age, and for 
many, many years had been there alone, and had not seen 
a man. They had become absolutely insane, and it 
required no little tact to prevent a catastrophe. One — 
a repulsive, toothless, black woman, formerly a slave 
■— was in such an excited state of mind that I was really 
glad when I saw my troop of animals started on the 
march early the next morning. 
On April sixth we were still on the north side of the 
Serra de Caldas, at the northernmost point of which 
flowed a fiber do, or great river (elevation 2,450 feet). 
Most beautiful grazing land spread to the north of us, 
enormous stretches of undulating country, verdant with 
delicious grass. The Sappe Mountains were still visible 
in the distance. 
Marching through enchanting country, almost level, 
or merely rising or descending a few feet, with a mag¬ 
nificent view of distant mountains to our right and of 
low, flat plains and far-away tablelands to our left, we 
arrived, after a morning’s march of 36 kilometres, at the 
fazenda of Pouso Alto (elevation 2,600 feet). 
Outwardly Pouso Alto was by far the neatest-looking 
fazenda we had seen since leaving Araguary, hut within 
70 
