248 Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



would lighten themselves. We were all armed. We 

 took no cartridges for sport. Cherrie had some to be 

 used sparingly for collecting specimens. The others 

 were to be used — ^unless in the unlikely event of having 

 to repel an attack — only to procure food. The food and 

 the arms we carried represented all reasonable precau- 

 tions against suffering and starvation ; but, of course, if 

 the course of the river proved very long and difficult, if 

 we lost our boats over falls or in rapids, or had to make 

 too many and too long portages, or were brought to a 

 halt by impassable swamps, then we would have to reckon 

 with starvation as a possibility. Anything might happen. 

 We were about to go into the unknown, and no one could 

 say what it held. 



