In due time we arrived again at Puerto Martinio, only to hear that our former fellow-passenger, the assassin, had regained his freedom and could be seen walking about the town. But then--well, he was rich, and money does all in Brazil--yea, the priest will even tell you it purchases an entrance into heaven! In worldly matters the people _see_ its power, and in spiritual matters they _believe_ it. If the priest has heard of Peter's answer to Simon--"Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money"--he keeps it to himself. How can he live if he deceives not? Strange indeed is the thought that, three hundred years before the caravels of Portuguese conquerors ever sailed these waters, the law of the Indian ruler of that very part of the country read: "Judges who receive bribes from their clients are to be considered as thieves meriting death." And a clause in the Sacred Book read: "He who kills another condemns his own self." Has the interior of South America gone forward or backward since then? Was the adoration of the Sun more civilizing than the worship of the Virgin? When we got down into Argentine waters I began to feel cold, and donned an overcoat. Thinking it strange that I should feel thus in the latitude which had in former times been so agreeable, I investigated, and found the thermometer 85 degrees Fah. in the shade. After Corumbá that was _cold_. PART V. URUGUAY [Illustration] THE LONE TRAIL. And sometimes it leads to the desert and the tongue swells out of the mouth, And you stagger blind to the mirage, to die in the mocking drouth. And sometimes it leads to the mountain, to the light of the lone camp-fire, And you gnaw your belt in the anguish of the hunger-goaded desire. --_Robert W. Service._ The Republic of Uruguay has 72,210 square miles of territory, and is the smallest of the ten countries of South America. Its population is only 1,103,000, but the Liebig Company, "which manufactures beef tea for the world, owns nearly a million acres of land in Uruguay. On its enormous ranches over 6,000,000 head of cattle have passed through its hands in the fifty years of its existence." [Footnote: Clark. "Continent of Opportunity."] The republic seems well governed, but, as in all Spanish-American countries, the ideas of right and wrong are strange. While taking part in a religious procession, President Borda was assassinated in 1897. A man was seen to deliberately walk up and shoot him. The Chief Executive fell mortally wounded. This cool murderer was condemned to two years' imprisonment for _insulting_ the President. In 1900, President Arredondo was assassinated, but the murderer was acquitted on the ground that "he was interpreting the feelings of the people."