RETURN OF THE RELIEF PARTY 293 



tananas for the trip (with a small pot for cooking) are put 

 at the bottom of the basket, the hammock being placed 

 above. For carrying cassava, sweet potatoes, and even 

 firewood to the huts these baskets are invariably used. 

 Whenever we went out orchid collecting the Indians 

 always brought their baskets Math them for packing and 

 •carrying their plants. 



On the afternoon of the 7th (June) at about three 

 o'clock, Isidor's wife came running to the house in a state 

 of great excitement, a rather unusual frame of mind 

 for an Indian woman to be in. She said she had been 

 standing on the rocks which command a good view of 

 the rapids for a considerable distance, when she had seen 

 for a moment what appeared to be a boat shoot across 

 one of the narrow channels. We accompanied her back 

 to the spot, but for some time we saw nothing but the 

 boiling bubbling waters forcing their way through the 

 rocky channels, and I was on the point of telling her she 

 must have made a mistake when a boat came into sight 

 in the distance. It was impossible to say how many 

 persons were in it, but it did not appear overcrowded, 

 which would have been the case had the relief party been 

 successful in its mission. By degrees, as the boat came 

 closer, we could distinguish its occupants : they were 

 Juan Saba, Isidor, and the two men despatched ten days 

 before. Evidently the expedition had failed. Isidor re- 

 lated how they had reached Para and had tried repeatedly 

 but in vain to cross the whirlpool so as to get to the 

 island. They had then attempted to scale the wall of 

 rock on the right bank of the fall in order to reach the 

 river above, but in this again they had failed. They had 

 met with no sign of the men anywhere, so that they had 

 come to the conclusion that it was useless to remain at 



