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The only earthly probability of accomplishing anything in that direction, was by bringing a force strong enough to sweep the warlike Murhapas from their path. Thankful would the little party of explorers be if they were permitted to get out of the Matto Grosso with their lives. They waited in the margin of the wood until the return of Ziffak and his baffled company.
Twenty years ago the writer of this sketch published Between the Amazon and the Andes and the Story of the Jesuit Missions of Paraguay. These books derive special interest from the fact that she was the first foreign woman ever seen in Cuyaba, the capital of Matto Grosso, whither she accompanied her husband, 2500 miles from either the Atlantic or the Pacific seaboard.
It was a sorrowful reflection, that, since the set of sun, two of their number had yielded up their lives, and they had barely reached the edge of the Matto Grosso, that land of mystery into which they hoped to penetrate far enough to learn much that was yet unknown to the civilized world.
"What care I for the gold and the diamonds and the precious stones of the Matto Grosso?" the ardent lover asked himself; "is not she the Koh-i-noor of them all? the one gem whose preciousness is worth more than all the world?" He was willing that the Professor and Jared Long should risk their lives in searching for the enchanted lake, and the burning mountain where such priceless wealth existed.
A single tide of invasion was not sufficient to satisfy a mind such as his. Gathering together a second powerful army, he determined to strike at the south-eastern portion of Brazil in addition to its province of Matto Grosso. In order to effect this he demanded in arrogant tones from Argentina permission for his troops to cross the Argentine province of Corrientes.
Before we left the house where we had been treated with such courteous hospitality the finest ranch-house in Matto Grosso, on a huge ranch where there are some sixty thousand head of horned cattle the son of our host, Dom Joao the younger, the jaguar-hunter, presented me with two magnificent volumes on the palms of Brazil, the work of Doctor Barboso Rodriguez, one-time director of the Botanical Gardens at Rio Janeiro.
The famous diamond mines of Brazil were not very far from this portion of the Matto Grosso, and the pains which the emperors of Brazil had taken to draw a part of their riches from the earth was all the proof Haffgo could ask of the rapacity of the nations which called themselves civilized.
For many years the sole method of communication between this remote interior province and civilization was by the long, difficult, and perilous route which led up the Amazon and Madeira; and its then capital, the town of Matto Grosso, the seat of the captain-general, with its palace, cathedral, and fortress, was accordingly placed far to the west, near the Guapore.
It had been the custom of the explorers, when camping on their way to the Matto Grosso, to have at all times a couple of their number on guard, the night being divided into two watches.
He could command hundreds of the most valiant warriors of the Matto Grosso, and any one, except such a lover as Fred Ashman, would have shrunk from the prodigious task before him. When the flight of the canoe had continued for several minutes, and he could breathe a little more freely, he asked of his companion, whether she was familiar with the region they expected to visit.
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