rare, but in revenge the sandy banks soon began to reflect a heat that
was hardly bearable. As the implacable sun neared its zenith the party
walked with bent heads and blinded eyes, now dashing through great
plains of bamboos, now following the hatchets of the peons through
thickets of heated shrubbery.

Whenever the country became more wooded in its character, the
bark-hunters, whose quest obliged them to stray in short flights
around the wings of the column, redoubled their mazes. The careless
air of these Bolivian retrievers, their voluntary doublings through
the most difficult jungles, and their easy way of walking over
everything with their noses in the air, proved well their indifference
to the obstacles which were almost insurmountable to the rest.

[Illustration: THE CONES OF PATABAMBA.]

Nothing could be more singular and interesting than to see them
consulting one by one the indications scattered around them, and
deciding on their probabilities or promises. Where the height and
thickness of the foliage prevented them from seeing the sky, or
even the shade of the surrounding green, they walked bent toward the
ground, stirring up the rubbish, and choosing among the dead foliage
certain leaves, of which they carefully examined the two sides and the
stem. When by accident they found themselves near enough to speak to
each other--a rare chance, for each peon undertook a separate line of
search--they asked their friends, showing the leaves they had found,
whether their discoveries appertained to the neighboring trees or
whether the wind had brought the pieces from a distance. This kind
of investigation, pursued by men who had prowled through forests
all their lives, might seem slightly puerile if the reader does