CHAPTER IX 



DOWN AN UNKNOWN RIVER INTO THE 

 EQUATORIAL FOREST 



THE mightiest river in the world is the Amazon. 

 It runs from west to east, from the sunset to the 

 sunrise, from the Andes to the Atlantic. The 

 main stream flows almost along the equator, while the 

 basin which contains its affluents extends many degrees 

 north and south of the equator. The gigantic equatorial 

 river basin is filled with an immense forest, the largest in 

 the world, with which no other forest can be compared 

 save those of western Africa and Malaysia. We were 

 within the southern boundary of this great equatorial 

 forest, on a river which was not merely unknown but 

 unguessed at, no geographer having ever suspected its 

 existence. This river flowed northward toward the equa- 

 tor, but whither it would go, whether it would turn one 

 way or another, the length of its course, where it would 

 come out, the character of the stream itself, and the 

 character of the dwellers along its banks — ^all these things 

 were yet to be discovered. 



One morning while the canoes were being built Ker- 

 mit and I walked a few kilometres down the river and 

 surveyed the next rapids below. The vast still forest 

 was almost empty of life. We found old Indian signs. 



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