for me. Such attentions to a stranger, who
came without even a letter of introduction, are typical of Brazilian
hospitality.

After a plentiful meal, consisting of fried fish and roast
loin of tapir, which tasted very good, we drank black coffee and
conversed as well as my limited knowledge of the Portuguese language
permitted. After this, naturally, feeling very tired from my travels
and the heat of the day, I arranged my future room, strung my hammock,
and slept until a servant announced that supper was served. This meal
consisted of jerked beef, farinha, rice, black beans, turtle soup,
and the national Goiabada marmalade. The cook, who was nothing but
a sick rubber-worker, had spoiled the principal part of the meal by
disregarding the juices of the meat, and cooking it without salt,
besides mixing the inevitable farinha with everything. But it was
a part of the custom of the country and could not be helped. _De
gustibus non est disputandum._

When this meal was over, I was invited to go with the secretary,
Mr. da Marinha, the man who had first greeted me in the morning,
to see a sick person. At some distance from the house was a small
barracao, where we were received by a _seringueiro_ named Marques. This
remarkable man was destined to figure prominently in experiences that
I had to undergo later. He pulled aside a large mosquito-net which
guarded the entrance of the inner room of this hut. In the hammock
we found a middle-aged woman; a native of Ceara. Her face was not
unattractive but terribly emaciated, and she was evidently very
sick. She showed us an arm bound up in rags, and the part exposed
was wasted and dark red. It was explained that three weeks before,
an accident had forced a wooden splinter into her thumb and she had
neglected the inflammation that followed. I asked her to undo the
wrappings, a thing which I should never have done, and the sight
we saw was most discouraging. The hand was swollen until it would
not have been recognised as a hand, and there was an immense lesion
extending from the palm to the middle of the forearm. The latter was in
a terrible condition, the flesh having been eaten away to the bone. It
was plainly a case of gangrene of a particularly vicious character.

Suddenly it dawned upon me that they all took me for a doctor; and the
questions they asked as to what should be done, plainly indicated that
they looked to me for assistance. I explained that I had no knowledge
of sur