Colonel Rondon had employed a number of motor-trucks in constructing this section of the telegraph-line; several of them were still in serviceable condition. It was therefore thought advisable to send a portion of the baggage ahead on the cars as far as the trail permitted, and as it would take several days for the rest of the expedition to catch up, Mr. Cherrie and I went along to devote to collecting the time thus gained. Father Zahm and Mr. Sigg also went in this party. We started from a point called Rio Mandioca, two days beyond Aldeia Queimada. There were three trucks, great, well-built machines of foreign make, laden to their fullest capacity with the heaviest and most cumbersome pieces of equipment. It was a strange sight to see them racing across the uninhabited _chapadão_ at a speed of thirty miles an hour. It rained frequently, but the powerful cars charged through the blinding sheets of falling water, and sent streams of mud flying from the inundated trail. Each car was provided with two wide belts of heavy slats; one of them was fitted over the wheels on each side of the car, so they formed a sort of endless trail and gave greater traction in the uneven roadway. Surely this was exploring _de luxe_; but we were to reach the other extreme before long. The car in which we travelled had a full-blooded Indian mechanician, who seemed to be fully initiated into the mysteries of handling an automobile, from gathering up branches and stones with which to fill up the roadway when the cars mired deep in the loose sand, to repairing the engine on the rare occasions when such a procedure was necessary. On the afternoon of the third day we reached a point called Macacos. A few decaying huts marked the spot, and in them lived a number of Parecís Indians, the first we had seen. They were a wild-looking lot; some of them wore breech-cloths, others loose, long, shirt-like garments, and all had a thick mop of tousled black hair. A few of the children were nearly covered with ropes of black beads cut from sections of thin rattan or bamboo. They rubbed their stomachs with their hands and said “_fome_,” meaning hungry; so we gave them half of a deer that had been killed a short time before, and they rushed into the huts to feast. We continued on a distance of four leagues. This brought us to the Rio Sacre--the end of the wide road. The river is here broken by a fall of one hundred and fifty feet. As elsewhere in South America, we were impressed with the appalling lack of animal life. So far we had seen only a few rheas, a seriema or two, and several small deer.