ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
seemed to be a paradise on earth: delightful climate, 
excellent soil, useful woods in the forest, plenty of 
delicious water. 
Three more streamlets flowing from west to east were 
encountered at elevations of 2,700 feet, 2,750 feet, and 
2,800 feet, with undulating grassy land between of 
wonderful beauty. 
Having deviated somewhat from our route, we at 
last descended into a grassy valley, absolutely flat, the 
best of all we had seen. It had been fenced all round. 
Upon inquiry, I learned that it had been acquired by the 
Redemptionist Friars. There is one thing friars certainly 
know. It is how to select the best land anywhere to settle 
upon. 
We had travelled 46 kilometres, 200 millimetres that 
day, when we arrived at Campinas (elevation 2,550 feet 
above the sea level), the usual kind of filthy village with 
tiny, one-storied houses, more like toys than real liveable 
habitations. This time the doors and windows were 
bordered with grey instead of blue. On nearing those 
villages in Central Brazil, one frequently found an abun¬ 
dance of rough wooden crosses scattered upon the 
landscape. They marked the spots where individuals 
had been killed. 
In the room where I put up in the village, in the 
hospedagen , or rest-house, the floor was besmeared with 
blood, the result of a recent murder. The shops grew 
more and more uninteresting as we got farther into the 
interior. The difficulties of transport were naturally 
greater, the prices rose by leaps and bounds, as we got 
farther; the population got poorer and poorer, for lack 
of enterprise. The articles of luxury and vanity, so fre¬ 
quently seen in shops before, were now altogether absent, 
and only bottles of inferior liquor and beer, matches, and 
candles were sold; that was all. No trade, no industry, 
no money, existed in those places. If one happened to 
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