On the afternoon of February 15 we reached Campos Novos.  This place was utterly unlike the country we had been traversing.  It was a large basin, several miles across, traversed by several brooks.  The brooks ran in deep swampy valleys, occupied by a matted growth of tall tropical forest.  Between them the ground rose in bold hills, bare of forest and covered with grass, on which our jaded animals fed eagerly.  On one of these rounded hills a number of buildings were ranged in a quadrangle, for the pasturage at this spot is so good that it is permanently occupied.  There were milch cows, and we got delicious fresh milk; and there were goats, pigs, turkeys, and chickens.  Most of the buildings were made of upright poles with roofs of palm thatch.  One or two were of native brick, plastered with mud, and before these there was an enclosure with a few ragged palms, and some pineapple plants.  Here we halted.  Our attendants made two kitchens:  one was out in the open air, one was under a shelter of ox-hide.  The view over the surrounding grassy hills, riven by deep wooded valleys, was lovely.  The air was cool and fresh.  We were not bothered by insects, although mosquitoes swarmed in every belt of timber.  Yet there has been much fever at this beautiful and seemingly healthy place.  Doubtless when settlement is sufficiently advanced a remedy will be developed.  The geology of this neighborhood was interesting—­Oliveira found fossil tree-trunks which he believed to be of cretaceous age.

Here we found Amilcar and Mello, who had waited for us with the rear-guard of their pack-train, and we enjoyed our meeting with the two fine fellows, than whom no military service of any nation could produce more efficient men for this kind of difficult and responsible work.  Next morning they mustered their soldiers, muleteers, and pack-ox men and marched off.  Reinisch the taxidermist was with them.  We followed in the late afternoon, camping after a few miles.  We left the oxcart at Campos Novos; from thence on the trail was only for pack-animals.

In this neighborhood the two naturalists found many birds which we had not hitherto met.  The most conspicuous was a huge oriole, the size of a small crow, with a naked face, a black-and-red bill, and gaudily variegated plumage of green, yellow, and chestnut.  Very interesting was the false bellbird, a gray bird with loud, metallic notes.  There was also a tiny soft-tailed woodpecker, no larger than a kinglet; a queer humming-bird with a slightly flexible bill; and many species of ant-thrush, tanager, manakin, and tody.  Among these unfamiliar forms was a vireo looking much like our solitary vireo.  At one camp Cherrie collected a dozen perching birds; Miller a beautiful little rail; and Kermit, with the small Luger belt-rifle, a handsome curassow, nearly as big as a turkey—­out of which, after it had been skinned, the cook made a delicious canja, the thick Brazilian soup of fowl and rice than which there is nothing better of its kind.  All these birds were new to the collection—­no naturalists had previously worked this region—­so that the afternoon’s work represented nine species new to the collection, six new genera, and a most excellent soup.