ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
Alcides’ principal faults were his great wastefulness 
and violent temper and pride, which made it most difficult 
to deal with him. He had been entrusted with the 
commissariat, as with all my other occupations I could 
not be bothered to sort out and weigh the food for each 
man at each meal. Alcides would not understand that it 
was unwise, in a country where absolutely nothing was 
procurable, to throw away daily little mountains of rice 
and beans and preserved meat, after the men and our dogs 
had gorged themselves; and that perhaps it would lead 
some day to our dying of starvation. In confidence I had 
told him that we might be several months, perhaps a year, 
before we should be able to get fresh supplies. A little 
economy would perhaps save us all from disaster. I 
wanted everybody to have ample food, but I did not see 
the use of throwing away daily a larger quantity than 
the men actually ate. It was true that we still had ample 
provisions of all kinds for some eight months, but we must 
be prepared for all emergencies. 
Alcides, who was extremely obstinate, would not hear 
of this. My remarks only made things worse. The waste 
from that day doubled, and looking ahead into the future, 
it really broke my heart, as I well saw that we should have 
hard times in front of us, all because of the lack of 
common-sense on the part of my followers. 
On leaving camp we climbed to the summit of another 
gigantic dome of green pasture land (elevation 2,500 
feet). We filled our lungs with the delicious air, slightly 
stirred by a fresh, northerly breeze. Geographically, we 
were at a most important site, for it was from that point 
that the division of waters took place between those 
flowing eastward into the Araguaya and those flowing 
westward into the Cuyaba River. So that within a dis¬ 
tance of a few kilometres we had visited the region — the 
very heart of Brazil — from which the waters parted to 
flow toward three different points of the compass. 
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