up the whole night to stir them up and watch them. Yes,
the position of cook for the camp was not an enviable one, for it meant
marching all day and sitting up all night to prepare the _feijao_ for the
following day. Yet the love they had for their _feijao_--I never ate the
beastly stuff myself--was so great that those lazy devils, who could not
be induced on any account to do other work, did not mind at all having
sleepless nights to watch over the stewing cauldron. With the _feijao_
were placed in the pot large pieces of _toucinho_ (lard). We carried
quantities of _feijao_, for without _feijao_ you cannot induce a
Brazilian to do anything or go anywhere. Of the two he would rather
sacrifice his life than lose his daily _feijao_.

It requires great ability, I believe, to cook _feijao_ properly. I
noticed that all my men in a body were ever superintending its
preparation. When the cook in the early hours of the morning happened to
let the fire go down, or in his drowsiness was not stirring it properly,
there were angry shouts from the other men, who, every time they opened
one eye in their sleep, invariably gazed towards the beloved cooking-pot.

We came to a second range parallel with the one described before and
extending from north-east to south-west. Again a vertical natural wall
was noticeable to the east. This range was subdivided into many sections,
almost all of the same size and shape. The end section to the
north-east--which made an exception--was about three and a half times the
length of any of the others. I observed some deep vertical vents such as
are frequently to be seen in the sections of volcanoes that have partly
been blown up. These vents were particularly numerous in the
north-easterly block, where broad corrugations and some narrow ones--ten
in all--were also to be seen.

Two alternatives could explain the present configuration of that region.
There had been either a great volcanic explosion or else a sudden
subsidence. Personally I was inclined to favour the first hypothesis. I
shall explain why. First because the great fissures between the various
huge blocks and the grooves carved in those rocks would then at once
explain themselves--caused naturally by the violent shock. They had
apparently been enlarged in the course of time by erosion of water and
wind, and possibly by the friction of the debris of the masses of rock
settling down when the stratum was severed. The quantity of debris of
sha