Farther on we stopped to take in wood at a large Brazilian cattle establishment, and a man there assured us that "there were no venomous insects except tigers," but these killed at least fifteen per cent. of his animals. Not long previously a tiger had, in one night, killed five men and a dog. The heat every day grew more oppressive. On the eighth day we passed the Brazilian fort and arsenal of Cuimbre, with its brass cannon shining in a sun of brass, and its sleepy inhabitants lolling in the shade. Five weeks after leaving Rio Janeiro we finally anchored in Corumbá, an intensely sultry spot. Corumbá is a town of 5,000 inhabitants, and often said to be one of the hottest in the world. It is an unhealthy place, as are most towns without drainage and water supply. In the hotter season of the year the ratio on a six months' average may be two deaths to one birth. It is a place where dogs at times seem more numerous than people, a town where justice is administered in ways new and strange. Does the reader wish an instance? An assassin of the deepest dye was given over by the judge to the tender mercies of the crowd. The man was thereupon attacked by the whole population in one mass. He was shot and stabbed, stoned and beaten until he became almost a shapeless heap, and was then hurried away in a mule cart, and, without coffin, priest or mourners, was buried like a dog. Perhaps the populace felt they had to take the law into their own hands, for I was told that the Governor had taken upon himself the responsibility of leaving the prison gates open to thirty-two men, who had quietly walked out. These men had been incarcerated for various reasons, murder, etc., for even in this state of Matto Grosso an assassin who cannot pay or escape suffers a little imprisonment. The excuse was, "We cannot afford to keep so many idle men--we are poor." What a confession for a Brazilian! I do not vouch for the story, for I was not an eye-witness to the act, but it is quite in the range of Brazilian possibilities. The only discrepancy may be the strange way of Portuguese counting. A man buys three horses, but his account is that he has bought twelve feet of horses. He embarks a hundred cows, but the manifest describes the transaction as four hundred feet. The Brazilian is in this respect almost a Yankee--little sums do not content him. Why should they, when he can truthfully boast that his territory is larger than that of the United States? His mile is longer than that of any other nation, and the _bocadinho_, or extra "mouthful," which generally accompanies it, is endless. Instead of having one hundred cents to the dollar, he has two thousand, and each cent is called a "king." The sound is big, but alas, the value of his money is insignificantly small!