Down an Unknown River 309 



gone to the summit of the mountain in order to find a 

 better trail for the burden-bearers, but it was hopeless, 

 and they had to go along the face of the cliffs. Such 

 an exploring expedition as that in which we were en- 

 gaged of necessity involves hard and dangerous labor, and 

 perils of many kinds. To follow down-stream an un- 

 known river, broken by innumerable cataracts and rapids, 

 rushing through mountains of which the existence has 

 never been even guessed, bears no resemblance whatever 

 to following even a fairly dangerous river which has 

 been thoroughly explored and has become in some sort 

 a highway, so that experienced pilots can be secured as 

 guides, while the portages have been pioneered and trails 

 chopped out, and every dangerous feature of the rapids 

 is known beforehand. In this case no one could foretell 

 that the river would cleave its way through steep moun- 

 tain chains, cutting narrow clefts in which the cliff walls 

 rose almost sheer on either hand. When a rushing river 

 thus "canyons," as we used to say out West, and the 

 mountains are very steep, it becomes almost impossible 

 to bring the canoes down the river itself and utterly im- 

 possible to portage them along the cliff sides, while even 

 to bring the loads over the mountain is a task of extraor- 

 dinary labor and difficulty. Moreover, no one can tell 

 how many times the task will have to be repeated, or when 

 it will end, or whether the food will hold out ; every hour 

 of work in the rapids is fraught with the possibility of 

 the gravest disaster, and yet it is imperatively necessary 

 to attempt it; and all this is done in an uninhabited wil- 

 derness, or else a wilderness tenanted only by unfriendly 

 savages, where failure to get through means death by 



