any of the other men into my confidence.
When they asked what the commotion was about, I told them that their
companion had fired at a jaguar and the jaguar had leapt away. There is
only one effective weapon you can use with scoundrels. It is the greatest
calm and kindness.

The man, hiding his face in his hands, threw himself upon his hammock and
began to sob. He sobbed and sobbed and sobbed until the morning--much to
the inconvenience of everybody in camp. At sunrise he had been seized
with a severe attack of rheumatism which had contracted a leg badly. It
was pitiful to see him walking--but when he was not aware of being looked
at he walked as well as anybody else.

From that day that fellow never dared look me straight in the face. He
avoided riding near me on the march, and in camp was sulky and
unpleasant, retiring to a distance and declining to work. He was relieved
of the functions of cook. The last time he had produced a meal nearly
brought massacre upon him at the hands of the other men.

He received his full pay up to date, without uttering a word of thanks.
He duly signed a receipt with his thumb-mark, as he was unable to write.
When the troop of horses and mules and his companions left, he never
spoke a word of farewell to his companions or animals, nor to me. He sat
silent and motionless, with his eyes riveted to the ground as if in a
trance. Some days later we discovered that he had stolen from our store
some 40 lbs. of coffee and a large quantity of sugar, as well as a number
of other articles which had been useful to us.

The sky when we left was overcast, and huge globular clouds, white and
grey, hung in great masses, especially half way up the vault of the sky.
The country, after crossing the Araguaya, was remarkably beautiful, from
an agricultural point of view--enormous campos or prairies--over rich
alluvial deposits, with scanty stunted trees upon them. Plenty of
_burity_ palms grew in the lower depressions.

My men suffered intensely from the cold at night--the minimum being 60 deg.
Fahr., maximum 92 deg., in the afternoon of the 13th. The temperature had
been much lower since we had crossed the great river. The elevation was
only 1,250 ft.

Rising slowly over an undulation in the country to 1,300 ft., we began to
find igneous rock showing through the surface soil, especially on the
higher points.

_Lixia_ (_Nephelium Litchi_ Carab), _caraiba_ and the _laranjeira do
campo_ (_Citrus vulgar