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Updated: June 28, 2025
Colonel Rondon had sent out one of our attendants, an old follower of his, a full-blood Parecis Indian, to look for tracks. This was an excellent man, who dressed and behaved just like the other good men we had, and was called Antonio Parecis. He found the tracks of a herd of thirty or forty cashadas, and the following morning we started after them. On the first day we killed nothing.
Colonel Rondon stated that they never wore a covering by night or by day, and if it was cool slept one on each side of a small fire. Their huts were merely slight shelters against the rain. The moon was nearly full, and after nightfall a few of the Indians suddenly held an improvised dance for us in front of our house. There were four men, a small boy, and two young women or grown girls.
In it the hounds a motley and rather worthless lot and the rest of the party were ferried across to the opposite bank, while Colonel Rondon and I stayed in the boat, on the chance that a tapir might be roused and take to the river. However, no tapir was found; Kermit killed a collared peccary, and I shot a capybara representing a color-phase the naturalists wished.
Colonel Rondon and Lyra were ahead; I sent a messenger for them, directed Cherrie and Kermit to stay where they were and guard the canoes and provisions, and started down the trail with the doctor an absolutely cool and plucky man, with a revolver but no rifle and a couple of the camaradas. We soon passed the dead body of poor Paishon.
The sketch-maps and surveying and cartographical work generally were to be made under the supervision of Colonel Rondon by Lyra, with assistance from Fiala and Kermit. Captain Amilcar handled the worst problem transportation; the medical member was Doctor Cajazeira.
Afterwards, with his son Kermit, some American naturalists, and Colonel Rondon, a brave and distinguished Brazilian officer, he made a long trip through the wilderness of Brazil, to hunt and explore. Some of the country through which they traveled was little known to white men; some of it absolutely unknown.
He lived on his grandfather's cattle-ranch, some fifty miles from Cuyaba. Then he went to live in Cuyaba with a kinsman on his father's side, from whom he took the name of Rondon; his own father's name was DaSilva. He studied in the Cuyaba Government School, and at sixteen was inscribed as one of the instructors.
Kermit and Cherrie took care of me as if they had been trained nurses; and Colonel Rondon and Lyra were no less thoughtful. The north was calling strongly to the three men of the north Rocky Dell Farm to Cherrie, Sagamore Hill to me; and to Kermit the call was stronger still.
But civilization is again advancing to reclaim the lost town and to revive the memory of the wilderness wanderer who helped to found it. Colonel Rondon has named a river after Franco; a range of mountains has also been named after him; and the colonel, acting for the Brazilian Government, has established a telegraph station in what was once the palace of the captain-general.
Colonel Rondon had given the Indians various presents, those for the women including calico prints, and, what they especially prized, bottles of scented oil, from Paris, for their hair. The men held a dance in the late afternoon.
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