328 THROUGH THE BRAZILIAN WILDERNESS 



The following day, the 24th, we ran down some fifty 

 kilometres to the Carupanan rapids, which by observation 

 Lyra found to be in latitude f 47'. We met several 

 batelaos, and the houses on the bank showed that the 

 settlers were somewhat better off than was the case far- 

 ther up. At the rapids was a big store, the property of 

 Senhor Caripe, the wealthiest rubber-man who works on 

 this river; many of the men we met were in his employ. 

 He has himself risen from the ranks. He was most kind 

 and hospitable, and gave us another boat to replace the 

 last of our shovel-nosed dugouts. The large, open house 

 was cool, clean, and comfortable. 



With these began a series of half a dozen sets of rapids, 

 all coming within the next dozen kilometres, and all offer- 

 ing very real obstacles. At one we saw the graves of four 

 men who had perished therein; and many more had died 

 whose bodies were never recovered; the toll of human 

 life had been heavy. Had we been still on an unknown 

 river, pioneering our own way, it would doubtless have 

 taken us at least a fortnight of labor and peril to pass. 

 But it actually took only a day and a half. All the chan- 

 nels were known, all the trails cut. Senhor Caripe, a first- 

 class waterman, cool, fearless, and brawny as a bull, came 

 with us as guide. Half a dozen times the loads were taken 

 out and carried down. At one cataract the canoes were 

 themselves dragged overland; elsewhere they were run 

 down empty, shipping a good deal of water. At the foot 

 of the cataract, where we dragged the canoes overland, we 

 camped for the night. Here Kermit shot a big cayman. 

 Our camp was alongside the graves of three men who at 

 this point had perished in the swift water. 



