degrees Fahrenheit. Biting flies came aboard even when we were in
midstream.

Next day we were ascending the Cuyaba River. It had begun raining in
the night, and the heavy downpour continued throughout the forenoon.
In the morning we halted at a big cattle-ranch to get fresh milk and
beef. There were various houses, sheds, and corrals near the river's
edge, and fifty or sixty milch cows were gathered in one corral.
Spurred plover, or lapwings, strolled familiarly among the hens.
Parakeets and red-headed tanagers lit in the trees over our heads. A
kind of primitive houseboat was moored at the bank. A woman was
cooking breakfast over a little stove at one end. The crew were
ashore. The boat was one of those which are really stores, and which
travel up and down these rivers, laden with what the natives most
need, and stopping wherever there is a ranch. They are the only stores
which many of the country-dwellers see from year's end to year's end.
They float down-stream, and up-stream are poled by their crew, or now
and then get a tow from a steamer. This one had a house with a tin
roof; others bear houses with thatched roofs, or with roofs made of
hides. The river wound through vast marshes broken by belts of
woodland.

Always the two naturalists had something of interest to tell of their
past experience, suggested by some bird or beast we came across. Black
and golden orioles, slightly crested, of two different species were
found along the river; they nest in colonies, and often we passed such
colonies, the long pendulous nests hanging from the boughs of trees
directly over the water. Cherrie told us of finding such a colony
built round a big wasp-nest, several feet in diameter. These wasps are
venomous and irritable, and few foes would dare venture near bird's-