CRIMINALS AS FOLLOWERS 
to show that no great feats of bravery could be expected 
of them. They were under-developed, exhausted, eaten 
up by the most terrible complaint of the blood. The 
lives in which they merely vegetated were without any 
mental stimulus. Many suffered from goitre; others had 
chests that were pitiful to look at, so under-developed 
were they; all continually complained, every time you 
spoke to them, of headache, toothache, backache, or some 
other ache. They were always dissatisfied with life and 
with the world at large, and had no energy whatever to 
try and improve their condition. They were extremely 
polite; they had a conventional code of good manners, to 
which they adhered faithfully; but that was all. 
At the end of the fourteen days in Goyaz, I had been 
able to purchase a good number of mules and horses — 
at a very high price, as the people would not otherwise 
part with their quadrupeds. Also I had collected all the 
riding and pack saddles and harness necessary, a sufficient 
quantity of spare shoes for the animals, a number of large 
saws, axes, picks, and spades, large knives for cutting our 
way through the forest, and every possible implement 
necessary on a journey of the kind I was about to 
undertake. Everything was ready — except the men! 
Alcides Ferreiro do Santos and Filippe da Costa de 
Britto, the two men lent me by Mr. Louis Schnoor in 
Araguary, upon seeing my plight, were at last induced 
to accompany the expedition at a salary of close upon a 
pound sterling a day each. 
At the last moment the Presidente came to my rescue. 
He supplied me with six men. 
“ They are criminals,” he said to me, “ and they will 
give you no end of trouble ” — a fact fully demonstrated 
three hours later that same evening, when one of them — 
an ex-policeman — disappeared forever with a few 
pounds sterling I had advancd him in order to purchase 
clothes. Another fellow vanished later, carrying away 
VOL. I. —8 113 
