A WOUNDED MULE 
pay with a five or a ten-milreis note (6s. 8 d. or 13s. 4d.), 
one could never obtain change. Frequently, unless you 
wished to leave the change behind, you were obliged to 
carry away the balance in cheap stearine or beer. I took 
the stearine. A short distance from the town was a 
seminary, with four German friars, very fat, very jolly, 
very industrious. 
Alcides, one of my men, was by way of being a 
veterinary surgeon. Here is how he cured a wounded 
mule, which, having received a powerful kick from an¬ 
other animal, displayed a gash three inches long in her 
back, and so deep that the entire hand could be inserted 
and actually disappear into the wound. Francisco, 
another of my men, having duly and firmly tied the 
animal’s legs — a sensible precaution — proceeded with 
his naked arm to search for bishus: anything living is a 
bislfiu in Brazil, from an elephant to a flea; but in this 
particular case it was applied to insects, such as carrapatos, 
maggots, or parasites, which might have entered the 
wound. Having done this at considerable length and 
care, he proceeded to tear off with his nails the sore edges 
of the laceration, after which he inserted into the gash a 
pad of cotton-wool soaked in creoline. That was the 
treatment for the first day. The second day, the wound 
proceeding satisfactorily, he inserted into it, together with 
his hand, a whole lemon in which he had made a cut, and 
squeezed its juice within the raw flesh. The amazing part 
of it all was that the animal, with an additional bath or 
two of salt and water, recovered absolutely from the 
wound and got perfectly well. 
The Redemptionist monks had a fine vineyard adjoin¬ 
ing their monastery — the only one of any size and 
importance we had seen since leaving the railway — and 
also some lovely orange groves in a walled enclosure. 
They had built a mill on the bank of the stream. Most 
of that beautiful valley for miles and miles belonged to 
VOL. I. —6 g]^ 
