on the farther bank were the buildings of the
telegraph station. This is a wild country, and the station was guarded
by a few soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Marino, a native of
Rio Grande do Sul, a blond man who looked like an Englishman--an
agreeable companion, and a good and resolute officer, as all must be
who do their work in this wilderness. The Juruena was first followed
at the end of the eighteenth century by the Portuguese explorer
Franco, and not again until over a hundred years had elapsed, when the
Telegraphic Commission not only descended, but for the first time
accurately placed and mapped its course.

There were several houses on the rise of the farther bank, all with
thatched roofs, some of them with walls of upright tree-trunks, some
of them daub and wattle. Into one of the latter, with two rooms, we
took our belongings. The sand-flies were bothersome at night, coming
through the interstices in the ordinary mosquito-nets. The first night
they did this I got no sleep until morning, when it was cool enough
for me to roll myself in my blanket and put on a head-net. Afterward
we used fine nets of a kind of cheese-cloth. They were hot, but they
kept out all, or almost all, of the sand-flies and other small
tormentors.

Here we overtook the rearmost division of Captain Amilcar's bullock-
train. Our own route had diverged, in order to pass the great falls.
Captain Amilcar had come direct, overtaking the pack-oxen, which had
left Tapirapoan before we did, laden with material for the Duvida
trip. He had brought the oxen through in fine shape, losing only three
beasts with their loads, and had himself left the Juruena the morning
of the day we reached there. His weakest animals left that evening, to
make the march by moonlight; and as it was desirable to give them
thirty-six hours' start, we halted for a day on the banks of the
river. It was not a wasted day. In addition to bathing and washing our
clothes, the naturalists made some valuable additions to the
collection--including a boldly marked black, blue, and white jay--and
our photographs were developed and our writing brought abreast of the
date. Travelling through a tropical wilderness in the rainy season,
when the amount of baggage that can be taken is strictly limited,
entails not only a good deal of work, but also the exercise of
considerable ingenuity if the writing and photographing, and
especially the preservation, of the specimens are to be