THE RIVER OF DOUBT 247 



collect, for in the early hours we could hear a number of 

 birds in the woods near by. The most interesting birds he 

 shot were a cotinga, brilliant turquoise-blue with a ma- 

 genta-purple throat, and a big woodpecker, black above 

 and cinnamon below with an entirely red head and neck. 

 It was almost noon before we started. We saw a few more 

 birds; there were fresh tapir and paca tracks at one point 

 where we landed; once we heard howler monkeys from the 

 depth of the forest, and once we saw a big otter in mid- 

 stream. As we drifted and paddled down the swirling 

 brown current, through the vivid rain-drenched green of 

 the tropic forest, the trees leaned over the river from both 

 banks. When those that had fallen in the river at some 

 narrow point were very tall, or where it happened that 

 two fell opposite each other, they formed barriers which 

 the men in the leading canoes cleared with their axes. 

 There were many palms, both the burity with its stiff fronds 

 like enormous fans, and a handsome species of bacaba, 

 with very long, gracefully curving fronds. In places the 

 palms stood close together, towering and slender, their 

 stems a stately colonnade, their fronds an arched fretwork 

 against the sky. Butterflies of many hues fluttered over 

 the river. The day was overcast, with showers of rain. 

 When the sun broke through rifts in the clouds, his shafts 

 turned the forest to gold. 



In mid-afternoon we came to the mouth of a big and 

 swift affluent entering from the right. It was undoubtedly 

 the Bandeira, which we had crossed well toward its head, 

 some ten days before, on our road to Bonofacio. The 

 Nhambiquaras had then told Colonel Rondon that it 

 flowed into the Duvida. After its junction, with the added 



