Down an Unknown River 321 



called in Brazil. It was taken round the city in triumph 

 in an ox-cart; the doctor saw it, and said it was three 

 metres long. He said that swimmers feared it even more 

 than the big cayman, because they could see the latter, 

 whereas the former lay hid at the bottom of the water. 

 Colonel Rondon said that in many villages where he had 

 been on the lower Madeira the people had built stockaded 

 enclosures in the water in which they bathed, not ventur- 

 ing to swim in the open water for fear of the piraiba and 

 the big cayman. 



Next day, April 8, we made five kilometres only, as 

 there was a succession of rapids. We had to carry the 

 loads past two of them, but ran the canoes without diffi- 

 culty, for on the west side were long canals of swift water 

 through the forest. The river had been higher, but was 

 still very high, and the current raced round the many 

 islands that at this point divided the channel. At four 

 we made camp at the head of another stretch of rapids, 

 over which the Canadian canoes would have danced with- 

 out shipping a teaspoonful of water, but which our dug- 

 outs could only run empty. Cherrie killed three monkeys 

 and Lyra caught two big piranhas, so that we were again 

 all of us well provided with dinner and breakfast. When 

 a number of men, doing hard work, are most of the time 

 on half-rations, they grow to take a lively interest in any 

 reasonably full meal that^ does arrive. 



On the 10th we repeated the proceedings: a short 

 quick run; a few hundred metres' portage, occupying, 

 however, at least a couple of hours ; again a few minutes' 

 run; again other rapids. iWe again made less than five 

 kilometres; in the two days we had been descending 



