AN EXTINCT CRATER 
cal end at its eastern terminus. The most easterly point of 
all, the highest, resembled a castle with vertical sides. But 
of this we have already spoken, at the terminal point of 
the great divided range we had passed some days 
previously. The vertical cliffs of the plateau, where 
lighted by the sun, were of a brilliant red colour. 
As we approached the twin hills they appeared to 
be the remains of an ancient crater. They formed, in fact, 
a crescent with a broken, rocky, lower section, completing 
the circle of the crater. I had no time to go and examine 
carefully, as it would have meant a deviation from my 
route, but that is how it appeared to me. There were, 
in fact, extra deep deposits of volcanic ashes at the foot 
of the descent before we arrived at the river Agua 
Emeindada, where we made our camp that night, fifteen 
kilometres from the Rio Barreiros. 
My men went after game that night. Alcides killed 
a veado (deer), and we all enjoyed the fresh meat for 
dinner. 
The clouds (cirro-stratus) were, during the entire day, 
in horizontal lines and slight, globular accumulations, the 
latter in a row and, taken en masse, giving also the 
impression of lines just above the horizon to the west. 
At sunset we once more saw the glorious effect of the 
radiation from the west, only instead of being straight 
lines there were, that time, feathery filaments, which rose 
in graceful curves overhead, like so many immense ostrich 
feathers. They joined again in a common centre to the 
east. 
My men were complaining all the time of the intense 
cold at night, and made me feel almost as if I had been 
responsible for it. They grumbled perpetually. During 
the early hours of the morning their moans were incessant. 
They never ceased crying, as hysterical young girls might 
do, but as one would not expect of men. Some of them 
had toothache; and no wonder, when one looked at their 
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