394 Appendix C 



weeks were spenr in slowly and with peril and exhausting 

 labor forcing our way down through what seemed a 

 literally endless succession of rapids and cataracts. For 

 forty-eight days we saw no human being. In pa ing 

 these rapids we lost five of the seven canoes with which 

 we started and had to build others. One of our best men 

 lost his life in the rapids. Under the strain one of the 

 men went completely bad, shirked all his work, stole his 

 comrades' food and when punished by the sergeant he 

 with cold-blooded deliberation murdered the sergeant and 

 fled into the wilderness. Colonel Rondon's dog running 

 ahead of him while hunting, was shot by two Indians; 

 by his death he in all probability saved the life of his 

 master. We have put on the map a river about 1500 

 kilometres in length running from just south of the 13th 

 degree to north of the 5th degree and the biggest affluent 

 of the Madeira. Until now its upper course has been 

 utterly unknown to every one, and its lower course al- 

 though known for years to the rubber men utterly un- 

 known to all cartographers. Its source is between the 

 12th and 13th parallels of latitude south, and between 

 longitude 59 degrees and longitude 60 degrees west from 

 Greenwich. We embarked on it about at latitude 12 

 degrees 1 minute south and longitude 60 degrees 18 west. 

 After that its entire course was between the 60th and 

 61st degrees of longitude approaching the latter most 

 closely about in latitude 8 degrees 15 minutes. The first 

 rapids were at Navaite in 1 1 degrees 44 minutes and after 

 that they were continuous and very difficult and danger- 

 ous until the rapids named after the murdered sergeant 

 Paishon in 11 degrees 12 minutes. At 11 degrees 23 



