THE RIVER OF DOUBT 245 



sighting-pole — incidentally encountering maribundi wasps 

 and swarms of biting and stinging ants. Lyra, from his 

 station up-stream, with his telemetre established the dis- 

 tance, while Colonel Rondon with the compass took the 

 direction, and made the records. Then they moved on to 

 the point Kermit had left, and Kermit established a new 

 point within their sight. The first half-day's work was 

 slow. The general course of the stream was a trifle east 

 of north, but at short intervals it bent and curved literally 

 toward every point of the compass. Kermit landed nearly 

 a hundred times, and we made but nine and a third kilo- 

 metres. 



My canoe ran ahead of the surveying canoes. The 

 height of the water made the going easy, for most of the 

 snags and fallen trees were well beneath the surface. Now 

 and then, however, the swift water hurried us toward rip- 

 ples that marked ugly spikes of sunken timber, or toward 

 uprooted trees that stretched almost across the stream. 

 Then the muscles stood out on the backs and arms of the 

 paddlers as stroke on stroke they urged us away from and 

 past the obstacle. If the leaning or fallen trees were the 

 thorny, slender-stemmed boritana palms, which love the 

 wet, they were often, although plunged beneath the river, 

 in full and vigorous growth, their stems curving upward, 

 and their frond-crowned tops shaken by the rushing water. 

 It was interesting work, for no civilized man, no white 

 man, had ever gone down or up this river or seen the coun- 

 try through which we were passing. The lofty and matted 

 forest rose like a green wall on either hand. The trees 

 were stately and beautiful. The looped and twisted vines 

 hung from them like great ropes. Masses of epiphytes 



