RECKLESS FEEDERS 
did. In the morning they were almost paralyzed with 
rheumatism and internal pains all over the body. Fre¬ 
quently those pains inside were accentuated by the 
experiments they made in eating all kinds of fruit, some 
of which was poisonous. Many a time on our march did 
we have to halt because one man or another was suddenly 
taken violently ill. My remedy on those occasions was to 
shove down their throats the end of a leather strap, which 
caused immediate vomiting; then, when we were in camp, 
I gave them a powerful dose of castor oil. After a few 
hours they recovered enough to go on. 
On May twenty-first the minimum temperature of the 
atmosphere was 55° Fahrenheit, the maximum 79°, the 
elevation 1,250 feet at the stream Agua Emeindata. My 
men declared again they were half-frozen during the night 
and would not go on with me, as it was getting colder 
all the time, and they would certainly die. When I told 
them that it was not cold at all, that, on the contrary, I 
considered that temperature quite high, they would not 
believe me. 
With the temperature in the sun during the day 
at 98°, most of the aches of the men disappeared, 
and I had little trouble with them until after sunset, 
when there was generally a considerable drop in the 
temperature. 
We went on. We had a volcanic mountain to the left 
of us — half the crater of a volcano formed of red lava 
and friable, red-baked rock. In the northern and central 
part of the mountain were masses of lava, which had been 
shot out of the mouth of the volcano and had solidified 
into all kinds of fantastic forms, some sharply pointed, 
some red, others black. On the east side of the crater 
was a dome covered with earth, with an underlying flow 
of lava. Then could be observed a circular group of huge 
rocks, pear-shaped, with sharp points upward. While 
the volcano was active, these rocks had evidently stood on 
237 
