ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
toucinho (lard). We carried quantities of feijao, for 
without feijao you cannot induce a Brazilian to do any¬ 
thing or go anywhere. Of the two he would rather 
sacrifice his life than lose his daily feijao. 
It requires great ability, I believe, to cook feijao 
properly. I noticed that all my men in a body were ever 
superintending its preparation. When the cook in the 
early hours of the morning happened to let the fire go 
down, or in his drowsiness was not stirring it properly, 
there were angry shouts from the other men, who, every 
time they opened one eye in their sleep, invariably gazed 
towards the beloved cooking-pot. 
We came to a second range parallel with the one 
described before and extending from northeast to south¬ 
west. Again a vertical natural wall was noticeable to the 
east. This range was subdivided into many sections, 
almost all of the same size and shape. The end section 
to the northeast, which made an exception, was about 
three and a half times the length of any of the others. 
I observed some deep vertical vents such as are to be seen 
frequently in the sections of volcanoes that have been 
partly blown up. These vents were particularly numerous 
in the northeasterly block, where broad corrugations and 
some narrow ones — ten in all — were also to be seen. 
Two alternatives could explain the present con¬ 
figuration of that region. There had been either a great 
volcanic explosion or else a sudden subsidence. Per¬ 
sonally I was inclined to favour the first hypothesis. I 
shall explain why. Eirst because the great fissures 
between the various huge blocks and the grooves carved 
in those rocks would then at once explain themselves: 
caused naturally by the violent shock. They had appar¬ 
ently been enlarged in the course of time by erosion of 
water and wind, and possibly by the friction of the debris 
of the masses of rock settling down, when the stratum 
was severed. The quantity of debris of shattered rock 
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