288 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



forested, there is little time to halt, and game cannot be 

 counted on. It is only in lands like our own West thirty 

 years ago, like South Africa in the middle of the last cen- 

 tury, like East Africa to-day that game can be made the 

 chief food supply. On this trip our only substantial food 

 supply from the country hitherto had been that furnished 

 by the palm-tops. Two men were detailed every day to 

 cut down palms for food. 



A kilometre and a half after leaving this camp we came 

 on a stretch of big rapids. The river here twists in loops, 

 and we had heard the roaring of these rapids the previous 

 afternoon. Then we passed out of earshot of them; but 

 Antonio Correa, our best waterman, insisted all along that 

 the roaring meant rapids worse than any we had encoun- 

 tered for some days. "I was brought up in the water, 

 and I know it like a fish, and all its sounds," said he. He 

 was right. We had to carry the loads nearly a kilometre 

 that afternoon, and the canoes were pulled out on the 

 bank so that they might be in readiness to be dragged 

 overland next day. Rondon, Lyra, Kermit, and Antonio 

 Correa explored both sides of the river. On the opposite 

 or left bank they found the mouth of a considerable river, 

 bigger than the Rio Kermit, flowing in from the west and 

 making its entrance in the middle of the rapids. This 

 river we christened the Taunay, in honor of a distinguished 

 Brazilian, an explorer, a soldier, a senator, who was also 

 a writer of note. Kermit had with him two of his novels, 

 and I had read one of his books dealing with a disastrous 

 retreat during the Paraguayan war. 



Next morning, the 25th, the canoes were brought down. 

 A path was chopped for them and rollers laid; and half- 



