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They were to go direct to the first telegraph station, at the great falls of the Utiarity, on the Rio Papagaio. Of course they travelled faster than the mule-train. Father Zahm, attended by Sigg, started for the falls in them.
This was necessary because of the condition of the baggage-animals. The oxen were so weak that the effort to bring on the carts had to be abandoned. Nine of the pack- mules had already been left on the road during the three days' march from Utiarity. In the first expeditions into this country all the baggage animals had died; and even in our case the loss was becoming very heavy.
The Parecis were, of course, in the right, but the colonel could not afford to have his men take sides in a tribal quarrel. It was only a two hours' march across to the Papagaio at the Falls of Utiarity, so named by their discoverer, Colonel Rondon, after the sacred falcon of the Parecis.
Fiala and Lieutenant Lauriado stayed at Utiarity to take canoes and go down the Papagaio, which had not been descended by any scientific party, and perhaps by no one. They were then to descend the Juruena and Tapajos, thereby performing a necessary part of the work of the expedition.
It was at the spot where nearly seven years previously Rondon and Lyra had camped on the trip when they discovered Utiarity Falls and penetrated to the Juruena. When they reached this place they had been thirty-six hours without food. They killed a bush deer a small deer and ate literally every particle. The dogs devoured the entire skin.
It rained during most of the day after our arrival at Utiarity. Whenever there was any let-up the men promptly came forth from their houses and played head-ball with the utmost vigor; and we would listen to their shrill undulating cries of applause and triumph until we also grew interested and strolled over to look on.
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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