ANIMAL LIFE 
by water; then under these a thick stratum — 80 feet or 
more — of warm-coloured, red earth. The streams which 
had cut their way through this geological formation were 
invariably limpid in the extreme. 
We were beginning to find beautiful flowers and but¬ 
terflies again, the latter in great swarms near the water. 
My caravan of grey and white pack-animals, some 
fourteen in all, was quite a picturesque sight as it wound 
its way down steep hillsides, the mounted men urging the 
mules with shouts and lashes from their whips. We ex¬ 
perienced difficulty in finding a good camp that night, the 
grazing being poor and the water scarce when sunset came. 
It seemed a pity that the most suitable camping places 
were not always to be found when you wished to halt! 
We were now at an elevation of 1,550 feet. When we 
proceeded the next morning, we found nothing of interest. 
Fairly wooded country alternated with campos, at first 
rather undulating, then almost flat, until we arrived at 
the Tapirapuana River (elevation 1,350 feet), 8 yards 
wide and 8 feet deep, which we crossed without much 
trouble, in the afternoon, at a spot some 28 kilometres dis¬ 
tant from our last camp. Luxuriant foliage hung over the 
banks right down into the water, which flowed so slowly — 
at the rate of only 1,080 metres an hour — that it looked 
almost stagnant, and of a muddy, dirty, greenish colour. 
We were much troubled by mosquitoes, flies, and 
carrapatinhos , the latter a kind of tiny little clinging 
parasite which swarmed absolutely all over us every time 
we put our feet on the ground on dismounting from our 
animals. The irritation was such that you actually drove 
your nails into your skin in scratching yourself. They 
could be driven away only by smearing oneself all over 
with tobacco juice, the local remedy, or with strong 
carbolic soap, which I generally used, and which worked 
even more satisfactorily. 
A tubercular leper came to spend the evening in our 
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