232 ACROSS NHAMBIQUARA LAND [chap, vii 



things that we carried were necessities — food, medicines, 

 bedding, instruments for determining the altitude and 

 longitude and latitude — except a few books, each in 

 small compass : Lyra's were in German, consisting of 

 two tiny volumes of Goethe and Schiller ; Kermit's 

 were in Portuguese ; mine, aU in English, included the 

 last two volumes of Gibbon, the plays of Sophocles, 

 More's " Utopia," Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus, the 

 two latter lent me by a friend. Major Shipton of the 

 Regulars, our MUitary Attache at Buenos Aires. 



If our canoe voyage was prosperous, we would gradu- 

 ally lighten the loads by eating the provisions. If we 

 met with accidents, such as losing canoes and men in 

 the rapids, or losing men in encounters with Indians, or 

 if we encountered overmuch fever and dysentery, the 

 loads would lighten themselves. We were all armed. 

 We took no cartridges for sport. Cherrie had some to 

 be used sparingly for collecting specimens. The others 

 were to be used — unless in the unhkely event of having 

 to repel an attack- — only to procure food. The food and 

 the arms we carried represented all reasonable pre- 

 cautions against suflfering and starvation ; but, of course, 

 if the course of the river proved very long and difficult, 

 if we lost our boats over falls or in rapids, or had to 

 make too many and too long portages, or were brought 

 to a halt by impassable swamps, then we would have to 

 reckon with starvation as a possibility. Anything might 

 happen. We were about to go into the unknown, and 

 no one could say what it held. 



