214 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



place, waited until we were several hundred yards ahead, 

 and then raced after us, overtook us, and repeated the 

 performance. The pack-train came in about sunset; but 

 we ourselves reached the Juruena in the middle of the 

 afternoon. 



The Juruena is the name by which the Tapajos goes 

 along its upper course. Where -we crossed, it was a deep, 

 rapid stream, flowing in a heavily wooded valley with 

 rather steep sides. We were ferried across on the usual 

 balsa, a platform on three dugouts, running by the force 

 of the current on a wire trolley. There was a clearing on 

 each side, with a few palms, and on the farther bank were 

 the buildings of the telegraph station. This is a wild 

 country, and the station was guarded by a few soldiers 

 under the command of Lieutenant Marino, a native of Rio 

 Grande do Sul, a blond man who looked like an English- 

 man — an agreeable companion, and a good and resolute 

 officer, as all must be who do their work in this wilder- 

 ness. The Juruena was first followed at the end of the 

 eighteenth century by the Portuguese explorer Franco, and 

 not again until over a hundred years had elapsed, when 

 the Telegraphic Commission not only descended, but for 

 the first time accurately placed and mapped its course. 



There were several houses on the rise of the farther 

 bank, all with thatched roofs, some of them with walls of 

 upright tree-trunks, some of them daub and wattle. Into 

 one of the latter, with two rooms, we took our belongings. 

 The sand-flies were bothersome at night, coming through 

 the interstices in the ordinary mosquito-nets. The first 

 night they did this I got no sleep until morning, when it 

 was cool enough for me to roll myself in my blanket and 



