Down an Unknown River 319 



not near my canoe. However, the previous evening 

 Cherrie had killed two monkeys and Kermit one, and we 

 all had a few mouthfuls of fresh meat; we had already 

 had a good soup made out of a turtle Kermit had caught. 

 We had to portage by one short set of rapids, the un- 

 loaded canoes being brought down without difficulty. 

 At last, at four in the afternoon, we came to the mouth 

 of a big river running in from the right We thought it 

 was probably the Ananas, but, of course, could not be 

 certain. It was less in volume than the one we had de- 

 scended, but nearly as broad; its breadth at this point 

 being ninety-five yards as against one hundred and twenty 

 for the larger river. There were rapids ahead, immedi- 

 ately after the junction, which took place in latitude 10° 

 58' south. We had come 216 kilometres all told, and were 

 nearly north of where we had started. We camped on 

 the point of land between the two rivers. It was extraor- 

 dinary to realize that here about the eleventh degree we 

 were on such a big river, utterly unknown to the cartog- 

 raphers and not indicated by even a hint on any map. 

 We named this big tributary Rio Cardozo, after a gallant 

 officer of the commission who had died of beriberi just 

 as our expedition began. We spent a day at this spot, 

 determining our exact position by the sun, and afterward 

 by the stars, and sending on two men to explore the rapids 

 in advance. They returned with the news that there were 

 big cataracts in them, and that they would form an ob- 

 stacle to our progress. They had also caught a huge 

 siluroid fish, which furnished an excellent meal for every- 

 body in camp. This evening at sunset the view across 

 the broad river, from our camp where the two rivers 



