DOWN AN UNKNOWN RIVER 293 



figures as these are not found anywhere else in Matto 

 Grosso where he has been, and therefore it was all the 

 more strange to find them in this one place on the un- 

 known river, never before visited by white men, which we 

 were descending. 



Next morning we went about three kilometres before 

 coming to some steep hills, beautiful to look upon, clad as 

 they were in dense, tall, tropical forest, but ominous of new 

 rapids. Sure enough, at their foot we had to haul up and 

 prepare for a long portage. The canoes we ran down 

 empty. Even so, we were within an ace of losing two, the 

 lashed couple in which I ordinarily journeyed. In a sharp 

 bend of the rapids, between two big curls, they were swept 

 among the bowlders and under the matted branches which 

 stretched out from the bank. They filled, and the racing 

 current pinned them where they were, one partly on the 

 other. All of us had to help get them clear. Their fas- 

 tenings were chopped asunder with axes. Kermit and half 

 a dozen of the men, stripped to the skin, made their way 

 to a small rock island in the little falls just above the canoes, 

 and let down a rope which we tied to the outermost canoe. 

 The rest of us, up to our armpits and barely able to keep 

 our footing as we slipped and stumbled among the bowlders 

 in the swift current, lifted and shoved while Kermit and his 

 men pulled the rope and fastened the slack to a half-sub- 

 merged tree. Each canoe in succession was hauled up the 

 little rock island, baled, and then taken down in safety by 

 two paddlers. It was nearly four o'clock before we were 

 again ready to start, having been delayed by a rain-storm 

 so heavy that we could not see across the river. Ten 

 minutes' run took us to the head of another series of rapids; 



