The Highland Wilderness 187 



write at that time. Of course, if we made a very early 

 start I could not write at all. At night there were no 

 mosquitoes. In the daytime gnats and sand-flies and 

 horse-flies sometimes bothered us a little, but not much. 

 Small stingless bees lit on us in numbers and crawled 

 over the skin, making a slight tickling; but we did not 

 mind them tmtil they became very numerous. There was 

 a good deal of rain, but not enough to cause any serious 

 annoyance. 



Colonel Rondon and Lieutenant Lyra held many dis- 

 cussions as to whither the Rio da Duvida flowed, and 

 .where its mouth might be. Its provisional name — "River 

 of Doubt" — was given it precisely because of this igno- 

 rance concerning it; an ignorance which it was one of 

 the purposes of our trip to dispel. It might go into the 

 Gy-Parana, in which case its course must be very short ; 

 it might flow into the Madeira low down, in which case 

 its course would be very long ; or, which was unlikely, it 

 might flow into the Tapajos. There was another river, 

 of which Colonel Rondon had come across the head- 

 waters, whose course was equally doubtful, although in 

 its case there was rather more probability of its flowing 

 into the Juruena, by which name the Tapajos is known 

 for its upper half. To this unknown river Colonel Ron- 

 don had given the name Ananas, because when he came 

 across it he found a deserted Indian field with pineapples, 

 which the hungry explorers ate greedily. Among the 

 things the colonel and I hoped to accomplish on the trip 

 was to do a little work in clearing up one or the other of 

 these two doubtful geographical points, and thereby to 

 push a little forward the knowledge of this region. Orig- 



