The Araguaya River (looking North).
The Araguaya (looking South).
The negro Filippe killed a wild boar. My men had a great time preparing a huge dinner. They absolutely gorged themselves. Personally I never touch pig in any shape or form, as I cannot get over the idea that its meat is poisonous for any thoroughly healthy person. It may, of course, not be so to people who are not absolutely healthy. The very sight and odour of it make me quite ill, and I fully share the idea of Mahommedans that the meat—certainly of tame pigs—is most unclean.
As we went on we had good sport, my men taking the greatest delight in fishing in the rivers on the banks of which we halted. The travelling was easy over flat country. We made short marches for some days, in order to let the animals recover their lost strength. In the river Las Almas (elev. 1,250 ft.), 20 metres wide and 3 ft. deep, flowing north-west, we caught a beautiful pintado fish—so called because of its spotted appearance. That fish possessed a huge flat head, with long feelers, two on the nose—at the side of the nostrils, to be accurate—two under its lower mandible. The mouth was enormous in comparison with the total length of the fish, and could be opened at an extraordinarily wide angle. Inside were most peculiar teeth in sets of twos, while the mouth was lined with thousands of hard, tiny sharp points. The eyes were far back upon the skull. The bony dome of the palate was divided in the centre, and a similar separation was to be observed in the centre of the lower jaw, giving thus a great flexibility to the interior of the mouth. When measured, the length of the head was exactly one-third of the length of the entire fish.
Other fish, too, were caught that day, called mandibé or fidalgo.
The aspect of the country was gradually changing. During that day's march we had gone over beautiful open stretches of grassy land with only a few stunted trees upon them. Bosquets or tufts of small palms or other trees were to be seen, raised on small mounds, showing how the country was gradually wearing itself down. Nearly each tree was raised on a mound of grey clay. Some fine specimens of Lexia trees, with their peculiarly distorted branches, were to be observed.
Those great scavengers of Brazil, the Urubu, of which two varieties were to be found—the Urubu commun (Cathartes atratus) and the Urubu rei (Cathartes Papa)—a cross between a vulture and a crow, were fairly plentiful now that game was more abundant in the country. They often pierced our ears with their unmusical shrieks. The urubu belonged to the vulture family and was found in all tropical South America. It had black plumage, somewhat shaggy, with reddish legs and feet, and bluish, almost naked, head and neck. Like all rapacious birds of its kind, it lived entirely on dead animals and what refuse it could find about the country. Near farms these birds were generally to be seen in great numbers.