went along. There were thousands of those webs
at the entrance of the forest, and we dragged them all along on our
passage. With their viscous properties they clung to us, and we could
only shake them off with difficulty.

Most interesting of all was the _cepa d'agua_--a powerful liana, four
inches in diameter, festooned from the highest branches of trees, and
which when cut ejected most delicious cool water. Then there was a tree
called by the Brazilians "_mulher pobre_," or "poor woman's tree"--do you
know why?--because from its juice it was possible to make soap, which
saved the expense of buying it. There was a roundabout way of reasoning
for you.

Eighteen kilometres from our last camp we came to a rapid streamlet of
the most limpid water, the Rio Mazagan (elev. 1,300 ft. above the sea
level), four metres wide and four inches deep. When we drank it it nearly
made us ill, so foul was its taste of sulphur and lead. The treacherous
stream flowed into the Cuyaba River.

There were many _tamburi_ trees of great proportions, handsome trees with
clean, healthy white bark and minute leaves--at the summit of the tree
only. In the forest, although the taller trees were generally far apart,
none of them had branches or leaves lower than 30 to 40 ft. from the
ground. The _angico_ or _angicu_ (_Piptadenia rigida_ Benth.), which was
quite plentiful, was also a good-looking tree of appreciable height and
circumference.

Upon emerging from the beautiful forest, quite clear underneath with only
a few ferns, we crossed great campos--"_campina grande_," as my
Brazilians called them. Skirting the forest in a northerly direction, we
went over a low hill range with delightful clear campos and patches of
forest. We crossed another streamlet of foul-tasting water--with a strong
flavour apparently of lead.

In the great undulating valley we left behind--as we now altered our
course slightly to the north-west--was prominent a double-humped hill
which rose higher than any other except in the north-west portion of the
landscape. There a high chain of hills could be seen.

When we crossed over the second ridge (elev. 1,400 ft.), strewn with
yellow lava pellets, at the end of extensive campos we obtained an
imposing view to the north. An elevated flat-topped table-land of great
magnitude rose in front of us--a perfectly straight line against the sky,
but terminating abruptly with three gigantic steps, with a subsidiary one
upon the seco