ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
campos, campos, campos, stretching as far as the eye could 
see. Far from being monotonous, one had, or at least I 
had, a delightful sensation in riding across those inter¬ 
minable prairies of beautiful green. One could breathe 
the pure air with fully expanded lungs, and in that silent, 
reposeful solitude one felt almost as if the whole world 
belonged to one. We were not much worried by insects 
on those great open places; it was only on getting near 
patches of vegetation and near streams that we suffered 
from the attacks of those pests. 
We saw few trees, those all stunted and weak, as the 
padding of earth over the rocky under-strata did not per¬ 
mit their roots to go deep down, and therefore they grew 
up with difficulty and were ansemic. 
Twelve kilometres from the Rio Barreiros we came 
to a stream (elevation 1,400 feet). On our left, rising 
above the inclined campos, was a triple undulation much 
higher than its neighbours. To the west stood two twin, 
well-rounded mounds, that my men named at once “ the 
woman’s breasts,” which they much resembled. 
We were still marching on deep deposits of ashes, and, 
higher, upon semi-hardened sandstone. On the northern 
side the twin hills had a different shape. They ended in 
a sharply pointed spur. 
After going over an ochre-coloured, sandy region 
(elevation 1,530 feet above the sea level) we came again 
to magnificent, undulating campos, dotted here and there 
with dark green shrubs and bosquets to the north, north¬ 
west, and northeast. 
Beyond, to the northeast, loomed again in the far 
distance our mysterious plateau, of a pure cobalt blue 
where in shadow. As one ran one’s eye along its sky¬ 
line, it was almost flat for more than half its length, then 
came a slight dip, followed by a terraced dome. Then 
again a straight line, followed by a slightly higher and 
more undulating sky-line with three steps in it, and a coni- 
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