ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
of those trees was very brittle and watery, with no power 
of resistance worth mentioning. 
Many were the streamlets which flowed into the Rio 
Preto at elevations from 1,450 to 1,500 feet, viz. the 
Burity Comprido, the Bujui, the Grinko, the Pomba, the 
Corgo do Campo, the Riberao Grande, and the Stiva. 
Many of those streamlets had beautiful beds of white 
marble pebbles, which made their cool and clear water 
look and taste perfectly delicious. Others, with soft, black 
mud bottoms, especially in cuvettes, were extremely 
troublesome to cross. 
On the banks of those streams were marvellous 
pacobeira palms — a kind of giant banana palm, attaining 
a height of thirty to forty feet, with a stem, ovoid in section, 
of great length, and from which shot out paddle-like 
leaves of immense size and of a gorgeous green, six to seven 
feet long and three feet wide. 
On July third we went through thick, dirty, low scrub 
and forest, except along streams, the banks of which were 
lined with tall, anaemic trees an inch in diameter with a 
mere bunch of leaves from branches at the summit. We 
again met with several cuvettes, very grassy, with the 
usual florid growth of trees in the centre. Those de¬ 
pressions were 1,400 feet above the sea level. From many 
of the trees hung huge globes, like tumours. They were 
nests of cupim, the destructive white ants (termes album ), 
of which there were swarms everywhere in that region. In 
one night they ate up the bottoms of most of my wooden 
boxes and rendered many of our possessions useless. 
They ate up our clothes, injured our saddles by eating the 
stitching; anything that was not of metal, glass, or 
polished leather was destroyed by those little devils. 
We were beginning to descend gradually on the 
northern side of the tableland. After crossing a pass 1,350 
feet above the sea level we arrived on a lagoon to our left. 
Shortly after we reached the left bank of the Arinos 
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