Across Unknown South America

by Arnold Henry Savage Landor

On June 10th Alcides and I were making ready to depart, with all the animals and baggage, when the four mutinous followers and Filippe the negro—most penitent—begged to be re-employed. Under ordinary circumstances I should certainly never have taken them back; but when one was hundreds of miles from everywhere, and had no possible way of finding a man, one had to be patient and make the best of what one could get. I gave them another chance—principally in order to save what I could of my baggage, most of which I was certain I should have had to abandon had I proceeded alone with Alcides.

The Capim Branco river was situated between two undulating ridges of lava.

I steered a course of 300° bearings magnetic (N.W.), beginning a steep climb at once through the thin forest of the plateau to the north. In many places the mules slid and rolled down the precipitous slope of igneous rock and marble débris, scattering the packs in every direction. It was a wonder they were not killed. We urged the animals on, we pushed and pulled them, we held them with all our might by the bridles when they began to slide. After many narrow escapes we reached the summit—an immense flat stretch of campos with stunted trees and delicious crisp air—quite delightful after the stifling atmosphere of the Capim Branco basin. The elevation above the sea level was 2,300 ft. On the summit of the plateau was a deep stratum of red soil. Having marched across the entire width of the plateau, we found, on descending on the opposite side, another series of dome-like mounds of crimson volcanic rock, with hardly any vegetation on them—joined together, and forming many headlands, as it were. Beyond an empty space—an opening in the landscape—a great barrier crossed the range of domes almost at right angles.

We descended through thick undergrowth, under big jatoba do matto (Hymencæa Courbaril L.) trees. The jatoba or jatahy wood has a high specific gravity, and is considered one of the woods with the highest resistance to disintegration in Brazil—as high as 1 kg. 315 gr. per square centimetre.

At 2,050 ft. we found a streamlet flowing southward. We were then in a grassy basin—another cuvette with two central tufts of thickly packed trees. We were lucky enough to see some coco babento palms, from which we shook down dates which were excellent, although somewhat troublesome to eat, owing to the innumerable filaments protecting the central large stone. These filaments stuck between one's teeth, and were most difficult to remove. The dates were the size and shape of an ordinary English walnut and extremely oily.

It was a real joy to see fine healthy trees again, after the miserable specimens we had seen of late. Even there, too, the powerful trees which emerged from the lower entangled scrub and dense foliage were greatly contorted, as if they had gone through a terrific effort in order to push their way through to reach the light and air. Liane innumerable and of all sizes hung straight or festooned from the highest trees or coiled in a deadly embrace round their branches like snakes. Nor were they the only enemies of trees. Large swellings could be noticed around most of the trees, caused by the terrible cupim (termes album) or white ants, carrying out their destructive work just under the bark. Many indeed were the trees absolutely killed by those industrious little devils.

As we marched through the matto, using the large knives freely to open our way, we had to make great deviations in our course—now because of a giant jatoba lying dead upon the ground, then to give a wide berth to a group of graceful akuri palms, with their huge spiky leaves. Those palms had great bunches of fruit. We were beginning now to find trees with fan-like extensions at the roots and base, such as I had frequently met with in the forests of Mindanao Island (Philippine Archipelago), where they were called caripapa and nonoko trees. The vines or liane were getting interesting, some being of great length and of colossal size, twisted round like a ship's cable.

We rose again to an elevation of 2,600 ft. On emerging from the cool dark forest and its refreshing green light, we found ourselves on another plateau with a slightly arched summit, of beautiful campos. From that height we looked over the immense undulating plain to the south. To the south-east we gazed upon a lower flat-topped plateau bounding the valley which, in great sweeping undulations from south-east to north-west, resembled an ocean with waves of colossal magnitude. We travelled across the slightly domed grassy plateau, and found on it a cuvette—only slightly depressed this time, but with the usual central line of tall trees with luxuriant foliage, burity palms and pintahyba trees. There, too, we had a surface stratum of red earth and fine brown dust, with an under stratum of grey ashes. Soon after we came to a second cuvette, and farther north a third could be perceived. In fact, the summit of that particular table-land was made up of subsidiary domes dividing cuvette from cuvette in succession.

In going down to 2,550 ft. we found a streamlet flowing northwest into the Rio das Mortes—or "River of Death." We were there on the great divide between the waters flowing south into the S. Lourenço and eventually into the Paraná, and those flowing north—after thousands of kilometres—into the Amazon. This little rivulet was therefore interesting to me, for it was the first one I had met flowing north since leaving the Araguaya—although not the first whose waters eventually flowed in a circuitous way into the Amazon.

That was a day of great domes—all of them with perfect curves. On them the grazing was magnificent. To the north a wonderful green dome, larger than the others (elev. 2,650 ft.), would have been splendid for cattle raising. Not a sign of life could be seen anywhere. Seldom have I seen nature so still and devoid of animal life. What immensity of rich land wasted! It made one's heart bleed to see it. There was everything there to make the fortunes of a hundred thousand farmers—yet there was not a soul! There was good grazing, plenty of water. There were no roads, no trails, it is true, but with a little enterprise it would be easy to make them. With a railway passing through, that now wasted land should become the richest on earth.