ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
west, feathery mist turned the sky to a delicate pale blue. 
A heavy, immense stratum of cloud in four perfectly 
parallel terraces extended on the arc from west to north. 
We descended into a cuvette with the usual cluster 
of vegetation in the centre and campos around. To the 
southwest of that cuvette was an elongated but well- 
rounded mountain, extending from east to west, and 
beyond, to the south-southwest, in the far distance, an 
almost identical replica of it. We travelled on deep 
volcanic sand on the west slope of the cuvette and in deep 
ashes at the bottom until we arrived at the Sangradorzinho 
River, flowing north. 
June first (thermometer minimum 55%° Fahrenheit; 
maximum 74°; elevation 2,150 feet). Heavy mist and 
rain-clouds, heavy and sultry atmosphere. Sky almost 
entirely covered by clouds. 
Owing to trouble among my followers and waiting 
for one of my men, who had remained behind in a last 
effort to find the missing horse, we were unable to leave 
camp until nearly noon. We rose to an elevation of 2,400 
feet, leaving behind the great cuvette , and marching over 
parallel domes, extending from north to south. Between 
those domes in the depressions were sandy cuvettes of 
verdant grass and the usual central bosquets . 
Cinders and sand were still plentiful, with stunted, 
thin trees growing upon them. Several times that day we 
reached an elevation of 2,550 feet. After passing a 
streamlet flowing north, we kept at that elevation for a 
considerable distance, after which, having descended 100 
feet (2,450 feet), we found ourselves in a most enchant¬ 
ing, oval-shaped cuvette of cinders, well covered with fresh 
verdure, and in its centre from north to south a row of 
burity palms. 
That was indeed a day of great surprises in the way 
of scenery. No sooner had we left that beautiful cuvette 
than we came to a magnificent, flat, open valley extending 
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