CHAPTER XIII 
The River Barreiros — A Country of Tablelands 
T HE Rio Barreiros was about 100 metres wide. It 
was reached through a thick belt, 100 metres in 
width, of trees and bamboos of large diameter, 
which lined both its banks. The river flowed swiftly 
where we crossed it, over a bed of lava and baked rock, 
red and black, with huge treacherous pits and holes which 
rendered the job of crossing the stream dangerous for our 
animals. There were rapids lower down in the terraced 
mass of rock forming the river bottom. The rock, worn 
smooth by the water, was extremely slippery. It was only 
after we had all undressed and taken the baggage safely 
across on our heads—the river being too deep for the 
loads to remain on the saddles — that we successfully 
drove the animals over to the opposite bank. 
On the banks I collected some specimens of the 
laminated red rock, which had no great crushing resistance 
when dry. It could be easily powdered under compara¬ 
tively light pressure, and scratched with no difficulty with 
one’s nails. It was of various densities of red tones, 
according to the amount of baking it had undergone. The 
superimposed red strata had a dip northward in some 
localities. The rock was much fissured, and had either 
gone through excessive contraction in cooling, or else per¬ 
haps had been shattered by some earthly commotion, such 
as must have occurred often in that region in ages gone 
by; for, if not, how could one account for finding scattered 
blocks of this red rock resting upon the surface of great 
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