In the morning Colonel Rondon arranged for us to have breakfast over on the benches under the trees by the waterfall, whose roar, lulled to a thunderous murmur, had been in our ears before we slept and when we waked.  There could have been no more picturesque place for the breakfast of such a party as ours.  All travellers who really care to see what is most beautiful and most characteristic of the far interior of South America should in their journey visit this region, and see the two great waterfalls.  They are even now easy of access; and as soon as the traffic warrants it they will be made still more so; then, from Sao Luis Caceres, they will be speedily reached by light steamboat up the Sepotuba and by a day or two’s automobile ride, with a couple of days on horse-back in between.

The colonel held a very serious council with the Parecis Indians over an incident which caused him grave concern.  One of the commission’s employees, a negro, had killed a wild Nhambiquara Indian; but it appeared that he had really been urged on and aided by the Parecis, as the members of the tribe to which the dead Indian belonged were much given to carrying off the Parecis women and in other ways making themselves bad neighbors.  The colonel tried hard to get at the truth of the matter; he went to the biggest Indian house, where he sat in a hammock—­an Indian child cuddling solemnly up to him, by the way—­ while the Indians sat in other hammocks, and stood round about; but it was impossible to get an absolutely frank statement.

It appeared, however, that the Nhambiquaras had made a descent on the Parecis village in the momentary absence of the men of the village; but the latter, notified by the screaming of the women, had returned in time to rescue them.  The negro was with them and, having a good rifle, he killed one of the aggressors.  The Parecis were, of course, in the right, but the colonel could not afford to have his men take sides in a tribal quarrel.

It was only a two hours’ march across to the Papagaio at the Falls of Utiarity, so named by their discoverer, Colonel Rondon, after the sacred falcon of the Parecis.  On the way we passed our Indian friends, themselves bound thither; both the men and the women bore burdens—­the burdens of some of the women, poor things, were heavy—­and even the small naked children carried the live hens.  At Utiarity there is a big Parecis settlement and a telegraph station kept by one of the employees of the commission.  His pretty brown wife is acting as schoolmistress to a group of little Parecis girls.  The Parecis chief has been made a major and wears a uniform accordingly.  The commission has erected good buildings for its own employees and has superintended the erection of good houses for the Indians.  Most of the latter still prefer the simplicity of the loin-cloth, in their ordinary lives, but they proudly wore their civilized clothes in our honor.  When in the late afternoon the men began to play a regular match game of head-ball, with a scorer or umpire to keep count, they soon discarded most of their clothes, coming down to nothing but trousers or a loin-cloth.  Two or three of them had their faces stained with red ochre.  Among the women and children looking on were a couple of little girls who paraded about on stilts.