ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
little joke, immediately produced the deadly tin, col¬ 
lecting upon the ground the four cups belonging to the 
strikers. Taking my instructions, he poured some four 
ounces of the sickening oil into each cup — and perhaps 
a little more. I handed a cup to each man and saw that 
he drank it. They all eventually did so, with comic 
grimaces and oaths. The men, I must tell you, had great 
faith in my powers as a medicine man. Once or twice 
before I had cured them of insignificant ailments, and 
whenever I told them seriously that they were ill they 
believed, in their ignorance, that they were really ill. 
This done, and to put them again in a good temper, 
I patted them on the back and, handing each of them a 
fish-hook and a line, sent them all to fish in the river, 
saying that as they were so ill I would delay my departure 
until the afternoon. 
“ That pool, over there,” some three hundred yards 
distant, I suggested would be an excellent place for them 
to fish in. In that direction, as meek as lambs, like so 
many naughty children they all went, carrying the lines 
away and some toucinho (lard) for bait. Alcides, who 
was an enthusiastic fisherman, also went off with a line, 
and had good sport. He reported that the other men lay 
flat on their backs upon the rocks most of the time, groan¬ 
ing and moaning, and basking in the sun instead of fishing. 
The castor oil in any case had the desired effect that the 
men did not mutiny again for some time. 
We did not leave camp until two p.m. The country 
was teeming with plants of great medicinal value, such 
as the sucupira, which gave a bean much used in Goyaz 
to relieve stomach troubles; the algudanzinho , with its 
lovely cadmium-yellow, cup-shaped flower —a plant 
which was most plentiful in that region, and the root of 
which is said to be very beneficial for the worst of venereal 
complaints; and also the acaraiba. Many were the hand¬ 
some wild flowers we came across, principally red and 
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