318 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



rubber-men and settlers for nearly two decades, and, as we 

 speedily found, were as easy to traverse as the upper 

 stream, which we had just come down, was difficult to 

 traverse; but the governmental and scientific authorities, 

 native and foreign, remained in complete ignorance; and 

 the rubber-men themselves had not the slightest idea of 

 the headwaters, which were in country never hitherto 

 traversed by civilized men. Evidently the Castanho was, 

 in length at least, substantially equal, and probably su- 

 perior, to the upper Aripuanan; it now seemed even more 

 likely that the Ananas was the headwaters of the main 

 stream than of the Cardozo.* For the first time this 

 great river, the greatest affluent of the Madeira, was to 

 be put on the map; and the understanding of its real posi- 

 tion and real relationship, and the clearing up of the complex 

 problem of the sources of all these lower right-hand afflu- 

 ents of the Madeira, was rendered possible by the seven 

 weeks of hard and dangerous labor we had spent in going 

 down an absolutely unknown river, through an absolutely 

 unknown wilderness. At this stage of the growth of world 

 geography I esteemed it a great piece of good fortune to be 

 able to take part in such a feat — a feat which represented 

 the capping of the pyramid which during the previous seven 

 years had been built by the labor of the Brazilian Tele- 

 graphic Commission. 



We had passed the period when there was a chance of 



*I hope that this year the Ananas, or Pineapple, will also be put on the 

 map. One of Colonel Rondon's subordinates is to attempt the descent of the 

 river. We passed the headwaters of the Pineapple on the high plateau, very 

 possibly we passed its mouth, although it is also possible that it empties into 

 the Canama orTapajos. But it will not be "put on the map" until some one 

 descends and finds out where, as a matter of fact, it really does go. 



