Corumbá is 384 feet above the sea level; Cuyabá is 401; thus the drop in 280 miles is only 17 feet or 7/10 of an inch to a mile. The swampy pasture which is entered and which continues until the day Cuyabá is reached is one of the hell holes of this earth. This immense marsh, which is 350 miles across in an east to west line, extends into Bolivia and is a flat piece of ground grown to marsh grass in which countless herds of semi-wild cattle fatten. There are occasional stunted trees whose penurious shade affords the sole protection against the powerful sun and blinding rays. In the afternoon of the first day, we passed a few huts named Tres Barras and at night pulled up to shore at a cape formed by the confluence of the Cuyabá and Paraguay rivers. On account of the low drop in altitudes, there is such poor drainage that branches of the Paraguay and Cuyabá shoot out in all directions, forming numerous channels in a great delta. The Paraguay is considerably wider than the Cuyabá and has a much greater volume of water as well as a swifter current. It is navigable for small vessels as far as São Luiz de Caceres about 250 miles farther up.
The whole trip was uneventful through a most monotonous country. About a day and one half before we reached the capital, another river flowing from the northeast and about the same size as the Cuyabá entered it. This river was named the São Lourenço although I understand that the natives are in the habit of giving this same name even to the Cuyabá River below its confluence. The heat was fierce but strange to say there were but few mosquitoes. It is most peculiar that of the whole La Plata river system mosquitoes are most abundant in the delta of the Paraná River between Rosario and Buenos Aires, and that up in the tropics of northern Paraguay and Matto Grosso where one would think they would be most likely to be found, they are noticeable by their absence. In other parts of Matto Grosso where the rivers belong to the Amazonian watershed, I understand they are legion. At night fireflies came out in bunches and the swampy plain was resonant with the croaking of frogs. One afternoon nearly a week after leaving Corumbá, hills appeared on the right which took on the form of low mountains and these continued in view until the capital in the midst of a thickly settled country was approached.
Street Scene, Cuyabá
Cuyabá is an old city of one-story houses, strongly built, and boasts of wide grass-grown streets, and a spacious shadeless plaza on which faces the cathedral. It is said to have been founded a couple of hundred years ago by Portuguese prospectors who started out from São Paulo. During the eighteenth century it was the center of the placer district and the headquarters of the miners who equipped themselves here for their trips to the remote parts of Brazil and what is now Bolivia. It was a lively place in those days, but a hundred years ago became decadent until recently when the cattle industry took a boom. In the last decade it has picked up, and its population to-day numbers not far from twenty thousand. It is the seat of a bishopric, is electric lighted (on the main street), and is in telegraphic communication (sometimes) with Rio de Janeiro. The Mogyana Railroad system from São Paulo is expected to extend here shortly which will be a great benefit to the place, as well as facilitate exportation. In many respects Cuyabá is a fine city although it falls far below the standard of a North American city of the same size. It has many fine residences, and an air of proudness and of aristocracy enthralls it. It is the residence of quite a few persons of wealth, and I am told that among its inhabitants are three millionaires, who by the way prefer to live in Paris and in Lisbon rather than in the stagnant town where they first saw the light of day. Cuyabá is very nearly in the center of South America and it seems incredible that in this region so little known, the surrounding country is so thickly populated and well cultivated. It is said that three quarters of the entire population of the tremendously large State of Matto Grosso inhabit a radius of fifty miles from Cuyabá as the center. The Chapada Mountains to the east rise to a height of 2733 feet. Cool breezes blow from the plateau of which they form the western barriers, causing the temperature not to be over-oppressive. There is but little malaria away from the river; the diseases common to the country seem to be beri-beri and leprosy. Many people afflicted with the last-named malady are found in all parts of Matto Grosso, but not so much so in the cities as in the country. This form of leprosy is not supposed to be contagious. Many of its victims also have elephantiasis.
Street Scene, Outskirts of Cuyabá
I was told that the springs that form the source of the Paraguay River were about four days' horseback ride distant, and as it has always been my ambition to gaze upon them, I decided to visit them. I had already seen the source of the Amazon, and considered that my travels in South America would be far from complete if I failed to also see the place whence the second greatest water system in that continent took its source. I had seen ancient woodcuts of the source of the river, the one which defined itself in my mind being from a drawing in the works of Dr. Martius, 1832. It depicts a flat, grassy plain in which is a pool, of irregular shape, about a stone's throw wide by the same dimension long, encircled by sixty-three hiaty palms with slender trunks. Martius' works are long out of print but a copy of his woodcut is reproduced on page 60 of Album Gráfico de la República del Paraguay by Arsenio Lopez Decoud, Buenos Aires, 1911. Many times during the long winter nights in my Northern Michigan home I have sat in front of the fireplace and gazed at this woodcut, always hoping that it would be my fortune to gaze upon the original. I became obsessed with this fixed idea in Buenos Aires, which was augmented in Asuncion, and it was solely for this reason that I went first to Corumbá and thence to Cuyabá, getting nearer and nearer the goal of my quest. In Cuyabá I was told that the source lay not many kilometers from the main traveled road from there to Diamantino, and was easily accessible. Little did I think that in seeing it, the trip would be responsible for the loss of a life.