3o8 Through the Brazilian Wilderness 



lieved that we should ever get out alive ; and we had to 

 cheer them up as best we could. 



There was no change in our work for the time being. 

 We made but three kilometres that day. Most of the 

 party walked all the time; but the dugouts carried the 

 luggage until we struck the head of the series of rapids 

 which were to take up the next two or three days. The 

 river rushed through a wild gorge, a chasm or canyon, 

 between two mountains. Its sides were very steep, mere 

 rock walls, although in most places so covered with the 

 luxuriant growth of the trees and bushes that clung in 

 the crevices, and with green moss, that the naked rock 

 was hardly seen. Rondon, Lyra, and Kermit, who were 

 in front, found a small level spot, with a beach of sand, 

 and sent back word to camp there, while they spent sev- 

 eral hours in exploring the country ahead. The canoes 

 were run down empty, and the loads carried painfully 

 along the face of the cliffs; so bad was the trail that I 

 found it rather hard to follow, although carrying nothing 

 but my rifle and cartridge-bag. The explorers returned 

 with the information that the mountains stretched ahead 

 of us, and that there were rapids as far as they had gone. 

 We could only hope that the aneroid was not hopelessly 

 out of kilter, and that we should, therefore, fairly soon 

 find ourselves in comparatively level country. The 

 severe toil, on a rather limited food supply, was telling 

 on the strength as well as on the spirits of the men; 

 Lyra and Kermit, in addition to their other work, per- 

 formed as much actual physical labor as any of them. 



Next day, the 3d of April, we began the descent of 

 these sinister rapids of the chasm. Colonel Rondon had 



