NAVIGATING SUBMEKGED FORESTS. 109 



exceedingly difficult and laborious. No longer guided in 

 this trackless maze by a regular channel, tv'C frequently 

 would be brought to a stand by an impenetrable thicket, 

 and obliged to retrace our course, and try another, with, 

 perhaps, like success. Our bongo was forced through 

 dense bushes, oftentimes grounding, then floating high 

 among the trees, which barely lifted their spreading sum- 

 mits above the waters. Our toilsome windings at length 

 terminated in our becoming entangled in the labyrinth of 

 forests and waters, from which there seemed no escape. 

 The thought of going supperless was by no means a com- 

 forting reflection, but that was easily to be foregone, com- 

 pared with the torture of sancudos, the busy hum of whose 

 marshalling legions was already heard. Night came on 

 apace, and settled round us black and cheerless ; when, un- 

 able to proceed in the thick darkness, we moored to a tree 

 which rose above the black waters, to wait for the morn- 

 ing. "Weary and hopeless, we threw ourselves in the bot- 

 tom of the boat and tried to sleep ; but myriads of insects 

 swarmed the air, with which we contested until conquered, 

 and then in despair yielded ourselves their prey. The 

 long-wished-for dajdight brought us relief, when, casting- 

 loose from our aerial anchorage, we resumed our efibrts to 

 extricate ovirselves from the flooded forests. Pressed by 

 hunger, we devised means of relief by taking the larger of 

 our two iron kettles, and, with the simple modification of 

 putting the fire inside instead of out, the fuel for which 

 was dry branches j^rocured from trees, we soon had coffee 

 made in our reserved pot, and this, with meat roasted 

 on spits, furnished us a meal to which our appetites were 

 prepared to do ample justice. 



Again pushing on, rowing where the depth of water 

 and absence of forest allowed, elsewhere poling or hauling 

 ourselves along by the branches of "the trees, we slowly 

 made way through the gloomy labyrinth, from which the 



