ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
side of another peculiar oval basin — this time one which 
possessed a thin strip or row of tall vegetation in perfect 
alignment in the central line of depression. A deep 
deposit of grey ashes and sand encircled this cuvette . The 
general longitudinal direction of the oval was from the 
south, the highest point, to the north, the lowest of 
the rim. 
Having travelled twenty-eight kilometres from Areal, 
we made camp on a streamlet flowing north. 
The company of my men was a great trial to me, a 
penance I had to bear in silence. What was more, I could 
not let it appear in the slightest degree that it was a 
penance to me, if I did not wish to make matters worse. 
Pusillanimity and fear are two qualities which I cannot 
quite understand nor admit in men. Hence, it is well to 
be imagined what I suffered in being with followers who, 
with the exception of Alcides and Filippe the negro, were 
afraid of everything. 
One of the men had a toothache. His last tooth in 
the lower jaw was so badly decayed that merely the 
outside shell remained. No doubt it gave him great pain. 
I offered to remove it for him, without a guarantee of 
painless extraction. The fear of greater pain than he 
endured, even for a few minutes, was too much for him. 
He would not hear of parting with what remained of the 
tooth. Result: for twelve consecutive days and nights 
that fellow cried and moaned incessantly, holding his jaw 
with both hands while riding a quiet mule, and sobbing 
hai , hai , hai , hai! all day long at each step of the animal — 
with variations of hoi, hoi, hoi , hoi when the mule went a 
little quicker, and significant loud shrieks of uppeppe, 
uppeppe, uppeppe, when the animal began to trot, giving 
the rider an extra pang. That intense pain invariably 
stopped at meal-times, and it did not seem to have an 
appreciable effect on the man’s ravenous appetite. My 
men never let a chance go by to let their companions share 
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