Our march continued through the same type of high, nearly level upland, covered with scanty, scrubby forest.  It is the kind of country known to the Brazilians as chapadao—­pronounced almost as if it were a French word and spelled shapadon.  Our camp on the fourth night was in a beautiful spot, an open grassy space, beside a clear, cool, rushing little river.  We ourselves reached this, and waded our beasts across the deep, narrow stream in the late afternoon; and we then enjoyed a bath and swim.  The loose bullocks arrived at sunset, and with shrill cries the mounted herdsmen urged them into and across the swift water.  The mule-train arrived long after night fall, and it was not deemed wise to try to cross the laden animals.  Accordingly the loads were taken off and brought over on the heads of the men; it was fine to see the sinewy, naked figures bearing their burdens through the broken moonlit water to the hither bank.  The night was cool and pleasant.  We kindled a fire and sat beside the blaze.  Then, healthily hungry, we gathered around the ox-hides to a delicious dinner of soup, beef, beans, rice, and coffee.

Next day we made a short march, crossed a brook, and camped by another clear, deep, rapid little river, swollen by the rains.  All these rivers that we were crossing run actually into the Juruena, and therefore form part of the headwaters of the Tapajos; for the Tapajos is a mighty river, and the basin which holds its headwaters covers an immense extent of country.  This country and the adjacent regions, forming the high interior of western Brazil, will surely some day support a large industrial population; of which the advent would be hastened, although not necessarily in permanently better fashion, if Colonel Rondon’s anticipations about the development of mining, especially gold mining, are realized.  In any event the region will be a healthy home for a considerable agricultural and pastoral population.  Above all, the many swift streams with their numerous waterfalls, some of great height and volume, offer the chance for the upgrowth of a number of big manufacturing communities, knit by rail-roads to one another and to the Atlantic coast and the valleys of the Paraguay, Madeira, and Amazon, and feeding and being fed by the dwellers in the rich, hot, alluvial lowlands that surround this elevated territory.  The work of Colonel Rondon and his associates of the Telegraphic Commission has been to open this great and virgin land to the knowledge of the world and to the service of their nation.  In doing so they have incidentally founded the Brazilian school of exploration.  Before their day almost all the scientific and regular exploration of Brazil was done by foreigners.  But, of course, there was much exploration and settlement by nameless Brazilians, who were merely endeavoring to make new homes or advance their private fortunes:  in recent years by rubber-gatherers, for instance, and a century ago by those bold and restless adventurers, partly of Portuguese and partly of Indian blood, the Paolistas, from one of whom Colonel Rondon is himself descended on his father’s side.