ch
can, owing to the length of its beak, be destroyed at a distance from the
bird's most vital organs.

These birds have received the name _tucano_ from the noise they make,
which resembles "_tok-kan_" very sharply pronounced and with a snap at
the end of each syllable.

The tucanos are good climbers, but not good fliers. In fact, their flight
is somewhat clumsy and heavy. They seldom fly long distances. They spend
all their time on the higher branches of trees. They are generally to be
seen alone or in couples, or perhaps occasionally in flocks of three or
four.

What spare moments I had in Castanho--after the storm was over--I spent
on the banks of the river looking at the magnificent stream.

Looking south, a low hill range could be seen in the distance with a
conical summit rising slightly above the range--the Serra do Cayapo. It
was there, as I have said, that the great Araguaya had its birth. It was
interesting to note that the head waters of the Araguaya--flowing north,
of course--had their birth within an infinitesimal distance of those of
two such immense rivers as the Inducassu and the Sucuru, flowing into the
Parana, and also near the somewhat unknown Taquary River flowing into the
Paraguay.

It would be possible--although perhaps expensive--by means of raised
artificial lakes and locks actually to join at least one of these
southern great rivers to the great Araguaya, and thus--barring some
troublesome rapids--form a continuous waterway from south to north across
South America, from Buenos Ayres, roughly in Lat. 34 deg. 5' south, to Para
in Lat. 1 deg. 27' 6" South. Imagine a distance by river extending for 33 deg.
37' 54" (or 3,737 kil.) in a straight line--as the crow flies--and not
less than double that distance if we include the constant turns and
deviations in the various connected rivers.

Easier still and less expensive would be to connect by rail the last two
navigable points of those two streams. That will certainly be done some
day, when those abandoned regions are eventually populated and properly
developed.

There were some rocky falls just below Porto Castanho which prevented
navigation as far as the place where we crossed the Araguaya--otherwise
the river was navigable from those falls as far as Conceicao.

The formation of the clouds over the great Araguaya River was peculiar.
Great clusters of globular clouds generally collected in three distinct
strata upon a whitish sky as far as