Next morning the sky was leaden, and a drenching rain fell as we began our descent of the river.  The rainy season had fairly begun.  For our good fortune we were still where we had the cabins aboard the boat, and the ranch-house, in which to dry our clothes and soggy shoes; but in the intensely humid atmosphere, hot and steaming, they stayed wet a long time, and were still moist when we put them on again.  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 two folios were in a box of native cedar.  No gift more appropriate, none that I would in the future value more as a reminder of my stay in Matto Grosso, could have been given me.

All that afternoon the rain continued.  It was still pouring in torrents when we left the Cuyaba for the Sao Lourenco and steamed up the latter a few miles before anchoring; Dom Joao the younger had accompanied us in his launch.  The little river steamer was of very open build, as is necessary in such a hot climate; and to keep things dry necessitated also keeping the atmosphere stifling.  The German taxidermist who was with Colonel Rondon’s party, Reinisch, a very good fellow from Vienna, sat on a stool, alternately drenched with rain and sweltering with heat, and muttered to himself:  “Ach, Schweinerei!”

Two small caymans, of the common species, with prominent eyes, were at the bank where we moored, and betrayed an astonishing and stupid tameness.  Neither the size of the boat nor the commotion caused by the paddles in any way affected them.  They lay inshore, not twenty feet from us, half out of water; they paid not the slightest heed to our presence, and only reluctantly left when repeatedly poked at, and after having been repeatedly hit with clods of mud and sticks; and even then one first crawled up on shore, to find out if thereby he could not rid himself of the annoyance we caused him.

Next morning it was still raining, but we set off on a hunt, anyway, going afoot.  A couple of brown camaradas led the way, and Colonel Rondon, Dom Joao, Kermit, and I followed.  The incessant downpour speedily wet us to the skin.  We made our way slowly through the forest, the machetes playing right and left, up and down, at every step, for the trees were tangled in a network of vines and creepers.  Some of the vines were as thick as a man’s leg.  Mosquitoes hummed about us, the venomous fire-ants stung us, the sharp spines of a small palm tore our hands—­afterward some of the wounds festered.  Hour after hour we thus walked on through the Brazilian forest.  We saw monkeys, the common yellowish kind, a species of cebus; a couple were shot for the