nests that were under such formidable shelter; but the birds
themselves were entirely unafraid, and obviously were not in any
danger of disagreement with their dangerous protectors. We saw a dark
ibis flying across the bow of the boat, uttering his deep, two-
syllabled note. Miller told how on the Orinoco these ibises plunder
the nests of the big river-turtles. They are very skilful in finding
where the female turtle has laid her eggs, scratch them out of the
sand, break the shells, and suck the contents.

It was astonishing to find so few mosquitoes on these marshes. They
did not in any way compare as pests with the mosquitoes on the lower
Mississippi, the New Jersey coast, the Red River of the North, or the
Kootenay. Back in the forest near Corumba the naturalists had found
them very bad indeed. Cherrie had spent two or three days on a
mountain-top which was bare of forest; he had thought there would be
few mosquitoes, but the long grass harbored them (they often swarm in
long grass and bush, even where there is no water), and at night they
were such a torment that as soon as the sun set he had to go to bed
under his mosquito-netting. Yet on the vast marshes they were not
seriously troublesome in most places. I was informed that they were
not in any way a bother on the grassy uplands, the high country north
of Cuyaba, which from thence stretches eastward to the coastal region.
It is at any rate certain that this inland region of Brazil, including
the state of Matto Grosso, which we were traversing, is a healthy
region, excellently adapted to settlement; railroads will speedily
penetrate it, and then it will witness an astonishing development.

On the morning of the 28th we reached the home buildings of the great
Sao Joao fazenda, the ranch of Senhor Joao da Costa Marques. Our host
himself, and his son, Dom Joao the younger, who was state secretary of