DOWN AN UNKNOWN RIVER 309 



entery, but all three continued to work. While in the 

 water trying to help with an upset canoe I had by my own 

 clumsiness bruised my leg against a bowlder; and the re- 

 sulting inflammation was somewhat bothersome. I now 

 had a sharp attack of fever, but thanks to the excellent 

 care of the doctor, was over it in about forty-eight hours; 

 but Kermit's fever grew worse and he too was unable to 

 work for a day or two. We could walk over the portages, 

 however. A good doctor is an absolute necessity on an 

 exploring expedition in such a country as that we were 

 in, under penalty of a frightful mortality among the mem- 

 bers; and the necessary risks and hazards are so great, 

 the chances of disaster so large, that there is no warrant 

 for increasing them by the failure to take all feasible pre- 

 cautions. 



The next day we made another long portage round some 

 rapids, and camped at night still in the hot, wet, sunless 

 atmosphere of the gorge. The following day, April 6, we 

 portaged past another set of rapids, which proved to be 

 the last of the rapids of the chasm. For some kilometres 

 we kept passing hills, and feared lest at any moment we 

 might again find ourselves fronting another mountain gorge; 

 with, in such case, further days of grinding and perilous 

 labor ahead of us, while our men were disheartened, weak, 

 and sick. Most of them had already begun to have fever. 

 Their condition was inevitable after over a month's unin- 

 terrupted work of the hardest kind in getting through the 

 long series of rapids we had just passed; and a long fur- 

 ther delay, accompanied by wearing labor, would have 

 almost certainly meant that the weakest among our party 

 would have begun to die. There were already two of the 



