Our next halt was forty kilometres farther down-stream at a rubber-camp known as Urupá. There were several palm-leaf huts standing on a slight elevation, so we took our hammocks and mosquito-nets and spent the night ashore. Travelling eighty kilometres the next day, we reached another rubber-camp called La Pena. The surrounding forest appeared most attractive, and it was said that a footpath led far into the interior to the side of an old Indian village, so I decided to remain at this point a few days to collect. However, a short walk down the trail soon showed that this plan was not feasible; the whole country was inundated to a depth of several feet, and there were so many fallen trees and clumps of thorny undergrowth that hunting was out of the question. [Illustration: A rubber-camp on the Rio Gy-Paraná.] [Illustration: A rubber-camp on the Lower Gy-Paraná.] The next day we reached Monte Christo, the depot of a large rubber concern which has its headquarters on the Madeira; about one hundred men had congregated here to await the coming of the dry season, when they would begin collecting rubber-latex from the _hevea_-trees which abound in the forest. Several long, thatched sheds housed the waiting crowd; hammocks were strung from every available post and rafter, giving the interior a cobwebby appearance, and around the edges of the huts, protected from the rain by the low, ragged roof of grass and leaves, numerous small fires smouldered, over which the men boiled their rations of beans or _farinha_. There were pure blacks, descendants of slaves who had been imported into Brazil from Africa many years before; also Indians, Portuguese, and men in whose veins flowed the blood of all three of these races. Many of them were ill with fever, and had large, vile-looking ulcers or “jungle” sores, which were said to result from the bite of a small fly. This was not surprising, as the place was entirely surrounded by pools of black, stagnant water in which clouds of mosquitoes hatched, and no sanitary precautions whatever were taken against infection. The natives are very fond of pets, and numbers of animals taken from the forest while young were enjoying their full liberty, but never ventured far from the houses. There was a collared peccary, full grown and very amiable, which liked to be petted, and emitted short, low moans and grunts when any one was near it; three curassows, dignified but restless, spent much of their time preening their feathers on a half-submerged log. They were beautiful creatures of a deep blue-black color, with white under parts and a wonderful curled crest. A pair of trumpeters strutted about the camp; monkeys of the _Cebus_ family and parrots of several species climbed about in the network of hammocks and added their chorus of screams and squawks to the general confusion.