DOWN AN UNKNOWN RIVER 291 



tories, and lighten the labor on farms. With the incoming 

 of settlement and with the steady growth of knowledge 

 how to fight and control tropical diseases, fear of danger 

 to health would vanish. A land like this is a hard land 

 for the first explorers, and perhaps for their immediate 

 followers, but not for the people who come after them. 



In mid-afternoon we were once more in the canoes; 

 but we had paddled with the current only a few minutes, 

 we had gone only a kilometre, when the roar of rapids in 

 front again forced us to haul up to the bank. As usual, 

 Rondon, Lyra, and Kermit, with Antonio Correa, explored 

 both sides while camp was being pitched. The rapids 

 were longer and of steeper descent than the last, but on 

 the opposite or western side there was a passage down 

 which we thought we could get the empty dugouts at the 

 cost of dragging them only a few yards at one spot. The 

 loads were to be carried down the hither bank, for a kilo- 

 metre, to the smooth water. The river foamed between 

 great rounded masses of rock, and at one point there was 

 a sheer fall of six or eight feet. We found and ate wild 

 pineapples. Wild beans were in flower. At dinner we had 

 a toucan and a couple of parrots, which were very good. 



All next day was spent by Lyra in superintending our 

 three best watermen as they took the canoes down the 

 west side of the rapids, to the foot, at the spot to which 

 the camp had meantime been shifted. In the forest some 

 of the huge sipas, or rope vines, which were as big as cables, 

 bore clusters of fragrant flowers. The men found several 

 honey-trees, and fruits of various kinds, and small cocoa- 

 nuts; they chopped down an ample number of palms, for 

 the palm-cabbage; and, most important of all, they gath- 



