The River of Doubt 265 



down which the canoes could not go ; and we returned to 

 the landing. All the canoes had gathered there, and 

 Rondon, Lyra, and Kermit started down-stream to ex- 

 plore. They returned in an hour, with the information 

 that the rapids continued for a long distance, with falls 

 and steep pitches of broken water, and that the portage 

 would take several days. We made camp just above the 

 rapids. Ants swarmed, and some of them' bit savagely. 

 Our men, in clearing away the forest for our tents, left 

 several very tall and slender accashy palms ; the bole of 

 this palm is as straight as an arrow and is crowned with 

 delicate, gracefully curved fronds. We had come along 

 the course of the river almost exactly a hundred kilo- 

 metres ; it had twisted so that we were only about fifty- 

 five kilometres north of our starting-point. The rock 

 was porphyritic. 



The 7th, 8th, and 9th we spent in carrying the loads 

 and dragging and floating the dugouts past the series of 

 rapids at whose head we had stopped. 



The first day we shifted camp a kilometre and a half 

 to the foot of this series of rapids. This' was a charming 

 and picturesque camp. It was at the edge of the river, 

 where there was a little, shallow bay with a beach of firm 

 sand. In the water, at the middle point of the* beach, 

 stood a group of three burity palms, their great trunks 

 rising like columns. Round the clearing in which our 

 tents stood were several very big trees ; two of them were 

 rubber-trees. Kermit went down-stream five or six kilo- 

 metres, and returned, having shot a jacu'and found that 

 at the point which- he had reached there was another 

 rapids, almost a fall, which would necessitate our again 



