260 WOMAN IN SCIENCE 



and exhausting that physical exertion of any kind was at 

 times almost impossible. There were also the torrential 

 and incessant rains making it impossible for them to cook 

 their food or dry their clothing which added to their 

 miseries whether in camp or in their canoe. 



Great, however, as were their trials on the river, they 

 were trifling in comparison with those in the woods. Here 

 locomotion was impeded by tangled undergrowth which 

 was bound together by strands of lianas and thorny vines 

 which constituted an impenetrable barrier until a passage 

 was hewn through it with a machete. Under foot was a 

 yielding morass which threatened to absorb them. Over- 

 head were countless chigoes, garapatas and fire-ants which 

 infested the body or buried themselves in the flesh. Or 

 there were clouds of mosquitoes which gave no rest day 

 or night. And worst of all was the ever-present danger 

 of fever and dysentery, not to speak of the dread diseases 

 so common in certain sections of the equatorial regions. It 

 was then that Mme. Coudreau had to act the part of a 

 physician, as well as of a leader, even though she was at 

 the time such a sufferer herself that she was barely able 

 to stand. 



To make matters still more difficult for Mme. Coudreau, 

 her employees at times, especially when under the influence 

 of liquor which they contrived to obtain some way or other, 

 became mutinous and refused to accompany her to the end 

 of her journey. At other times the expedition was halted 

 by their fear of wild beasts or savage Indians, or by im- 

 aginary evils of many kinds, suggested to them by their 

 superstitious minds. On such occasions Mme. Coudreau 

 never failed to show herself a born leader of men, for she 

 invariably alone as she was with a crew who were often 

 half savages was successful in suppressing incipient rebel- 

 lion and in restoring obedience and order. 1 



iThe following dialogue between Mme. Coudreau and one of her 

 boatmen, Joas-Felix, who was the spokesman of his companions, 



