THE RIVER OF DOUBT 261 



Oxford Book of French Verse. Eustache Deschamp, Jo- 

 achim du Bellay, Ronsard, the dehghtful La Fontaine, the 

 delightful but appaUing Villon, Victor Hugo's "Guitare," 

 Madame Desbordes-Valmore's lines on the little girl and 

 her pillow, as dear little verses about a child as ever were 

 written — these and many others comforted me much, as 

 I read them in head-net and gauntlets, sitting on a log by 

 an unknown river in the Amazonian forest. 



On the loth we again embarked and made a kilometre 

 and a half, spending most of the time in getting past two 

 more rapids. Near the first of these we saw a small cay- 

 man, a jacare-tinga. At each set of rapids the canoes were 

 unloaded and the loads borne past on the shoulders of the 

 camaradas; three of the canoes were paddled down by a 

 couple of naked paddlers apiece; and the two sets of double 

 canoes were let down by ropes, one of one couple being 

 swamped but rescued and brought safely to shore on each 

 occasion. One of the men was upset while working in the 

 swift water, and his face was cut against the stones. Lyra 

 and Kermit did the actual work with the camaradas. Ker- 

 mit, dressed substantially like the camaradas themselves, 

 worked in the water, and, as the overhanging branches 

 were thronged with crowds of biting and stinging ants, he 

 was marked and blistered over his whole body. Indeed, 

 we all suffered more or less from these ants; while the 

 swarms of biting flies grew constantly more numerous. 

 The termites ate holes in my helmet and also in the cover 

 of my cot. Every one else had a hammock. At this camp 

 we had come down the river about 102 kilometres, accord- 

 ing to the surveying records, and in height had descended 

 nearly 100 metres, as shown by the aneroid — although the 



