254 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



six-foot poles, or small logs, were cut as rollers and placed 

 about two yards apart. With block and tackle the seven 

 dugouts were hoisted out of the river up the steep banks, 

 and up the rise of ground until the level was reached. 

 Then the men harnessed themselves two by two on the 

 drag-rope, while one of their number pried behind with a 

 lever, and the canoe, bumping and sliding, was twitched 

 through the woods. Over the sandstone flats there were 

 some ugly ledges, but on the whole the course was down- 

 hill and relatively easy. Looking at the way the work 

 was done, at the good-will, the endurance, and the bull- 

 like strength of the camaradas, and at the intelligence and 

 the unwearied efforts of their commanders, one could but 

 wonder at the ignorance of those who do not realize the 

 energy and the power that are so often possessed by, and 

 that may be so readily developed in, the men of the tropics. 

 Another subject of perpetual wonder is the attitude of cer- 

 tain men who stay at home, and still more the attitude of 

 certain men who travel under easy conditions, and who 

 belittle the achievements of the real explorers of, the real 

 adventurers in, the great wilderness. The impostors and 

 romancers among explorers or would-be explorers and wil- 

 derness wanderers have been unusually prominent in con- 

 nection with South America (although the conspicuous ones 

 are not South Americans, by the way); and these are fit 

 subjects for condemnation and derision. But the work of 

 the genuine explorer and wilderness wanderer is fraught 

 with fatigue, hairdship, and danger. Many of the men of 

 little knowledge talk glibly of portaging as if it were simple 

 and easy. A portage over rough and unknown ground is 

 always a work of difficulty and of some risk to the canoe; 



