diest of
the lot. Every time I warned him not to be so wasteful, as we should find
ourselves dying of starvation, he and the others made me feel that I was
meanness itself, and that I was only doing it to save money.

I never objected to their eating as much as they could--as I have always
made it a point on all my expeditions to feed my men on the best food
procurable, and give them as much as they could possibly devour. But it
pained me to see quantities of good food thrown away daily, as I knew
what it would mean to us later on.

"We are Brazilians," said they, "and like plenty to eat. When there is no
more we will go without food. You do not know Brazilians, but Brazilians
can go thirty or forty days without anything to eat!"

"All right," said I--"we shall see."

Forty minutes--and perhaps not so long--had been, so far, the longest
time I had seen them cease munching something or other. Not satisfied
with the lavish food they were supplied with--heaps of it were always
thrown to the dogs, after they had positively gorged themselves--yet they
would pick up anything on the way: a wild fruit, a scented leaf of a
tree, a nut of some kind or other, a _palmito_, a chunk of tobacco--all
was inserted in the mouth. It was fortunate that we took enough exercise,
or surely they would have all perished of indigestion. In my entire
experience I have never seen men eat larger quantities of food and more
recklessly than my Brazilian followers did. In the morning they were
almost paralyzed with rheumatism and internal pains all over the body.
Frequently those pains inside were accentuated by the experiments they
made in eating all kinds of fruit, some of which was poisonous. Many a
time on our march did we have to halt because one man or another was
suddenly taken violently ill. My remedy on those occasions was to shove
down their throats the end of a leather strap, which caused immediate
vomiting; then when we were in camp I gave them a powerful dose of castor
oil. After a few hours they recovered enough to go on.

On May 21st the minimum temperature of the atmosphere was 55 deg. Fahr., the
maximum 79 deg., the elevation 1,250 ft. at the stream Agua Emeindata. My men
declared again they were half-frozen during the night and would not go on
with me, as it was getting colder all the time and they would certainly
die. When I told them that it was not cold at all--on the contrary, I
considered that temperature quite high--they wo