SHORTAGE OF FOOD 
a quintuple murder, to endeavour to push on towards my 
goal, Manaos on the Amazon, some 1,600 kilometres 
distant as the crow flies, or at least 4,000 to 5,000 kilo¬ 
metres travelling, with possible deviations, without some 
of which it was not possible to proceed. We could cer¬ 
tainly not fall back on our point of departure, the terminus 
of the railway at Araguary, 1,596 kilometres distant; nor 
on Goyaz, the last city we had seen, 1,116 kilometres away, 
so that the only way to escape death was to fall back on 
the ancient settlement of Diamantino, the farthest village 
in Central Brazil, a place once established by the first 
Portuguese settlers of Brazil while in search of diamonds. 
Diamantino was practically in the very centre of the 
thicker part of South America, without counting Pata¬ 
gonia. It was almost equidistant — roughly speaking, 
some 2,560 kilometres as the crow flies — from Pernam¬ 
buco on the Atlantic Coast to the east, Callao (Lima) 
in Peru on the Pacific Coast to the west, Georgetown in 
British Guiana to the north, and Buenos Aires in the 
Argentine Republic. Although so far in the interior 
and almost inaccessible from the north, east, and west, 
Diamantino could be reached comparatively easily from 
the south, travelling by river up the Parana, Paraguay, 
and the Cuyaba Rivers, as far as Rosario, thence by trail 
to Diamantino. I had heard that the place was once 
flourishing, but had since become almost totally aban¬ 
doned. I thought that perhaps I might be able to 
purchase sufficient provisions to get along; and, hope 
being one of my everlasting good qualities, I also dreamt 
that perhaps I might there get fresh men. 
It was indeed with a bleeding heart, when I had 
reached a point some 200 kilometres north of the Serra 
Azul, that I had to alter my course, which had been 
practically due north, into a southwesterly direction, and 
endeavour to find Diamantino. My men were delighted 
at the prospect of seeing human beings again. We had 
359 
