man was of nearly pure white blood; the steersman
was of nearly pure negro blood, and was evidently the stronger
character and better man of the two. The other canoes carried a couple
of fazendeiros, ranchmen, who had come up from Caceres with their
dogs. These dugouts were manned by Indian and half-caste paddlers, and
the fazendeiros, who were of nearly pure white blood, also at times
paddled vigorously. All were dressed in substantially similar clothes,
the difference being that those of the camaradas, the poorer men or
laborers, were in tatters. In the canoes no man wore anything save a
shirt, trousers, and hat, the feet being bare. On horseback they wore
long leather leggings which were really simply high, rather flexible
boots with the soles off; their spurs were on their tough bare feet.
There was every gradation between and among the nearly pure whites,
negroes, and Indians. On the whole, there was the most white blood in the
upper ranks, and most Indian and negro blood among the camaradas; but
there were exceptions in both classes, and there was no discrimination
on account of color. All alike were courteous and friendly.

The hounds were at first carried in two of the dugouts, and then let
loose on the banks. We went up-stream for a couple of hours against
the swift current, the paddlers making good headway with their pointed
paddles--the broad blade of each paddle was tipped with a long point,
so that it could be thrust into the mud to keep the low dugout against
the bank. The tropical forest came down almost like a wall, the tall
trees laced together with vines, and the spaces between their trunks
filled with a low, dense jungle. In most places it could only be
penetrated by a man with a machete. With few exceptions the trees were
unknown to me, and their native names told me nothing. On most of them
the foliage was thick; among the exceptions were the cecropias,
growing by preference on new-formed alluvial soil bare of other trees,
whose rather scanty leaf bunches were, as I was informed, the favorite
food of sloths. We saw one or two squirrels among the trees, and a
family of monkeys. There were few sand-banks in the river, and no
water-fowl save an occasional cormorant. But as we pushed along near
the shore, where the branches overhung and dipped in the swirling
water, we continually roused little flocks of bats. They were hanging
from the boughs right over the river, and when our approach roused
them they