284 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



attendant labor and hazard, it was not likely that we should 

 go much faster. 



On the morning of March 22 we started in our six 

 canoes. We made ten kilometres. Twenty minutes after 

 starting we came to the first rapids. Here every one walked 

 except the three best paddlers, who took the canoes down 

 in succession an hour's job. Soon after this we struck a 

 bees' nest in the top of a tree overhanging the river; our 

 steersman climbed out and robbed it, but, alas ! lost the 

 honey on the way back. We came to a small steep fall 

 which we did not dare run in our overladen, clumsy, and 

 cranky dugouts. Fortunately, we were able to follow a 

 deep canal which led off for a kilometre, returning just be- 

 low the falls, fifty yards from where it had started. Then, 

 having been in the boats and in motion only one hour 

 and a half, we came to a long stretch of rapids which it 

 took us six hours to descend, and we camped at the foot. 

 Everything was taken out of the canoes, and they were 

 run down in succession. At one difficult and perilous 

 place they were let down by ropes; and even thus we al- 

 most lost one. 



We went down the right bank. On the opposite bank 

 was an Indian village, evidently inhabited only during the 

 dry season. The marks on the stumps of trees showed 

 that these Indians had axes and knives; and there were 

 old fields in which maize, beans, and cotton had been 

 grown. The forest dripped and steamed. Rubber-trees 

 were plentiful. At one point the tops of a group of tall 

 trees were covered with yellow-white blossoms. Others 

 bore red blossoms. Many of the big trees, of different 

 kinds, were buttressed at the base with great thin walls of 



