bad French, and broken German. Some of us wrote. Fiala made sketches
of improved tents, hammocks, and other field equipment, suggested by
what he had already seen. Some of us read books. Colonel Rondon, neat,
trim, alert, and soldierly, studied a standard work on applied
geographical astronomy. Father Zahm read a novel by Fogazzaro. Kermit
read Camoens and a couple of Brazilian novels, "O Guarani" and
"Innocencia." My own reading varied from "Quentin Durward" and Gibbon
to the "Chanson de Roland." Miller took out his little pet owl Moses,
from the basket in which Moses dwelt, and gave him food and water.
Moses crooned and chuckled gratefully when he was stroked and tickled.

Late the first evening we moored to the bank by a little fazenda of
the poorer type. The houses were of palm-leaves. Even the walls were
made of the huge fronds or leafy branches of the wawasa palm, stuck
upright in the ground and the blades plaited together. Some of us went
ashore. Some stayed on the boats. There were no mosquitoes, the
weather was not oppressively hot, and we slept well. By five o'clock
next morning we had each drunk a cup of delicious Brazilian coffee,
and the boats were under way.

All day we steamed slowly up-stream. We passed two or three fazendas.
At one, where we halted to get milk, the trees were overgrown with
pretty little yellow orchids. At dark we moored at a spot where there
were no branches to prevent our placing the boats directly alongside
the bank. There were hardly any mosquitoes. Most of the party took
their hammocks ashore, and the camp was pitched amid singularly
beautiful surroundings. The trees were wawasa palms, some with the
fronds cresting very tall trunks, some with the fronds--seemingly
longer--rising almost from the ground. The fronds were of great
length; some could not have been less than fifty feet long. Bushes and