A HEAVY STORM 
cook and eat their food. None of the houses possessed a 
chimney, cooking being done outside; nor, of course, were 
there any sanitary arrangements. Those of my men who 
had toothache cried and moaned the whole night, as might 
be expected of children aged six of any other country. I 
have seldom seen men more sensitive and frightened at 
pain or illness. 
The main structure at Porto do Castanho (Port of 
the Chestnut Tree, because there should be a chestnut 
tree there) was the church, a mere barn, which elsewhere 
but in Central Brazil would not be considered good enough 
for storing hay, still less for the worship of the Almighty. 
Not that it was used much for the latter purpose, as 
there was no priest within several hundred kilometres. 
The walls of the church were all scraped and dirty, the 
corners chipped off by passing animals. All the passers-by 
went and wiped their dirty hands on the walls of the 
church, perhaps attracted by the whitewash, which none of 
the other buildings possessed. 
The shops -—there were two — had nothing for sale, 
except some locally grown tobacco. In one shop I found 
some small iron nails, which were sold at the equivalent 
of 6d. each! 
May eleventh. The drenching rain continued the 
entire night, the minimum temperature being 73° 
Fahrenheit. My poor animals were in a terrible condition 
the next morning through the damp, the sores having be¬ 
come badly infected. They were in a purulent condition, 
and contained a mass of maggots, the terrible bishus, 
which were the pest of Brazil. So we had the great job 
of cleaning them all with a powerful disinfectant as well 
as washing them with a decoction of warm barbatimao 
(Stryphnodendron barbatimao M.), a wood with a great 
resistance to crushing (K. 1.015) and a specific gravity 
of 1.275. The decoction, which was really very beneficial 
for wounds and sores of animals, was made with the bark 
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