The River of Doubt 251 



which two disks, one red and one white, were placed a 

 metre apart. He selected a place which commanded as 

 long vistas as possible up-stream and down, and which 

 therefore might be at the angle of a bend; landed; cut 

 away the branches which obstructed the view; and set 

 up the sighting - pole — incidentally encountering mari- 

 bundi wasps and swarms of biting and singing ants. 

 Lyra, from his station up-stream, with his teleraetre 

 established the distance, while Colonel Rondon with the 

 compass took the direction, and made the records. Then 

 they moved on to the point Kermit had left, and Kermit 

 established a new point within their sight. The first 

 half-day's work was slow. The general course of the 

 stream was a trifle east of north, but at short intervals it 

 bent and curved literally toward every point of the com- 

 pass. Kermit landed nearly a hundred times, and we 

 made but nine and a third kilometres. 



My canoe ran ahead of the surveying canoes. The 

 height of the water made the going easy, for most of the 

 snags and fallen trees were well beneath the surface. 

 Now and then, however, the swift water hurried us 

 toward ripples that marked ugly spikes of sunken timber, 

 or toward uprooted trees that stretched almost across the 

 stream. Then the muscles stood out on the backs and 

 arms of the paddlers as stroke on stroke they urged us 

 away from and past the obstacle. If the leaning or 

 fallen trees were the thorny, slender-stemmed boritana 

 palms, which love the wet, they were often, although 

 plunged beneath the river, in full and vigorous growth, 

 their stems curving upward, and their frond-crowned 

 tops shaken by the rushing water. It was interesting 



