The silence of that wonderful landscape was impressive. The tinkling of my mules' neck-bells was the only cheering sound breaking that monotonous solitude—except perhaps the occasional harsh voices of my men urging on the animals with some unrepeatable oath or other.
Filippe, the negro—to be distinguished from the other Filippi in my employ, a mulatto—was mounted on one of my best mules. He carried a regular armoury on his back and round his waist, for not only did he carry his own rifle but also mine, besides a pistol and two large knives. He rode along, slashing with a long whip now at one mule then at another. Occasionally he treated us to some of his improvised melodies—not at all bad and quite harmonious, although one got rather tired of the incessant repetitions. Filippe was a pure negro, born in Brazil from ex-slaves. He had never been in Africa. His songs interested me, for although much influenced naturally by modern Brazilian and foreign airs he had heard at Araguary, still, when he forgot himself and his surroundings, he would relapse unconsciously into the ululations and plaintive notes and rhythm typical of his ancestral land in Central Africa—that of the Banda tribe, which I happened to have visited some years before. I identified him easily by his features, as well as by his music and other characteristics.
Filippe did not remember his father and mother, nor had he known any other relatives. He had no idea to what tribe he had belonged, he did not know any African language, and he had never to his remembrance knowingly heard African music. It was remarkable under those circumstances that the Central African characteristics should recur unconsciously in Filippe's music. It showed me that one is born with or without certain racial musical proclivities, dictated by the heart and brain. They cannot be eradicated for many generations, no matter what the place of birth may be or the different surroundings in which the individual may find himself, or the influences which may affect him even early in life.
Brazil was certainly a great country for tablelands. As we came out again into the open, another great plateau, ending with a spur not unlike the ram of a battleship, loomed in the foreground to the south. Yet another plateau of a beautiful pure cobalt, also with another gigantic ram, appeared behind the first, in continuation of the two separated plateaux we have already examined. It was separated from these by a deep cut—a regular cañon—several miles wide, and with sides so sharply defined that it looked like the artificial work of an immense canal.
Great campos lay before us in the near foreground, from our high point of vantage (elev. 1,550 ft.). We were still travelling on a surface of volcanic débris, yellow ashes and sand—forming a mere cap over all those hills, the foundation of which was simply a succession of giant domes of lava.
North-west we still had the almost flat sky-line of a plateau rising slightly in two well-defined steps or terraces to a greater height in its northern part. What most attracted me that day was the delightful view of the Barreiros valley spreading before us—a view of truly extraordinary grandeur.
We rapidly descended, leaving to our left the Indian colony of Aracy. Great granitic and lava slabs, much striated, were seen on our way down to the river (elev. 1,200 ft.). The stream was 50 metres wide, and flowed south where we crossed it. There was a handsome white sand beach on the left bank of the river. On the western, or right bank, stood great volcanic cliffs of boiled and broiled rock, interesting for the violent contortions they had undergone during the processes of ebullition, which showed plainly in their present solidified form.
The river bed itself was one of the usual lava-flows with huge globular lumps and knots—but all in a solid, uninterrupted mass.
We waded chest-deep across the stream, conveyed our baggage and mules to the opposite side, and then we all enjoyed a lovely bath with plenty of lathering soap in the deliciously refreshing waters of the Rio Barreiros.
The river Barreiros, which had its birth in the Serra Furnas Corros, to the south-west, entered the Rio das Garças—there 100 metres wide—a short distance from where we crossed it. The latter river, by far the larger of the two and of a very circuitous course, flowed in a south-easterly direction into the Araguaya. The Rio das Garças, which also had its origin in the Furnas Corros Mountains, had almost a parallel course with the upper Barreiros from south-west to north-east, but on meeting the Barreiros suddenly swung round at a sharp angle towards the south-east, which direction it more or less followed until it entered the Araguaya.
