A SPECIAL SECRET 
special secret of my own which brought me back alive, and 
that I must be even bullet-proof. They could never be 
induced to go alone, even when armed, for more than a 
few metres from camp. 
We were having cool nights. Minimum 59° Fahren¬ 
heit, maximum 80° Fahrenheit — on May seventeenth. 
A mackerel sky of the prettiest design was overhead, 
like a lovely mosaic of white and blue porcelain, while a 
band of clear blue encircled us all around above the 
horizon line. 
Across a forest we continued our journey, rising some 
300 feet to 1,350 feet above the sea level, where we again 
found campos and forest alternately upon deep masses of 
fine red sand, or else great expanses of grey and black 
volcanic cinders intermixed in patches. On reaching the 
highest elevation we actually went over six kilometres of 
volcanic sand and ashes, and in one place traversed a 
patch of shattered debris with cutting edges of eruptive 
rock, and brilliant red or deep black pebbles. Then again 
we saw masses of the usual ferruginous, much-perforated 
rocks, many so absolutely spherical as to resemble cannon¬ 
balls. 
To the west we could see before us lovely green 
undulations — campos — with a curious hump in the 
centre, that looked as though due to subterranean pressure. 
In the distance was visible another of those long, flat- 
topped plateaus typical of Brazil, with a headland which, 
owing, it seemed, chiefly to erosion, had become separated 
from the main range. It resembled and was parallel with 
the second range of the split mountains we had just left. 
Some nine kilometres from our last camp we encountered 
the river Das Corgo, flowing south (elevation 1,150 feet) 
over a bed formed by an impressive great flow of solidified 
red lava covered in some places by deposits of bright red 
earth. Beyond the river we found ourselves again upon 
yellow sand and ashes. 
165 
