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Colonel Rondon and Kermit came to it first, and the former named it Rio Kermit. There was in it a waterfall about six or eight feet high, just above the junction. Here we found plenty of fish. Lyra caught two pacu, good-sized, deep-bodied fish. They were delicious eating. Antonio the Parecis said that these fish never came up heavy rapids in which there were falls they had to jump.
In my canoe Luiz the steersman, the headman, was a Matto Grosso negro; Julio the bowsman was from Bahia and of pure Portuguese blood; and the third man, Antonio, was a Parecis Indian. The actual surveying of the river was done by Colonel Rondon and Lyra, with Kermit as their assistant.
The prolongation of this promontory has given rise to the idea that the Andes are linked with a series of hills which the Serras dos Parecis, the Serra Melgueira, and the supposed Cordillera of San Fernando, throw out towards the west. This almost unknown part of the frontiers of Brazil and Upper Peru merits the attention of travellers.
Here there is a balsa, or ferry, run by two Parecis Indians, as employees of the Telegraphic Commission, under the colonel. Each had a thatched house, and each had two wives all these Indians are pagans. All were dressed much like the poorer peasants of the Brazilian back country, and all were pleasant and well-behaved. The women ran the ferry about as well as the men.
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.
In our family we have always relished Oliver Herford's nonsense rhymes, including the account of Willie's displeasure with his goat: "I do not like my billy goat, I wish that he was dead; Because he kicked me, so he did, He kicked me with his head." Well, these Parecis Indians enthusiastically play football with their heads.
Kermit went down-stream five or six kilometres, and returned, having shot a jacu and found that at the point which he had reached there was another rapids, almost a fall, which would necessitate our again dragging the canoes over a portage. Antonio, the Parecis, shot a big monkey; of this I was glad because portaging is hard work, and the men appreciated the meat.
As the western widening of the Brazilian group, or rather the undulations of the soil in the Campos Parecis, correspond with the spurs of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, and Beni, which the Andes send out eastward, it was formerly concluded that the system of the mountains of Brazil was linked with that of the Andes of Upper Peru. I myself laboured under this error in my first geologic studies.
We all of us had to help in building the canoes now and then. Kermit, accompanied by Antonio the Parecis and Joao, crossed the river and walked back to the little river that had entered from the east, so as to bring back a report of it to Colonel Rondon. Lyra took observations, by the sun and by the stars. We were in about latitude 11 degrees 2 minutes south, and due north of where we had started.
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.
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