CHAPTER VIII 



THE RIVER OF DOUBT 



On February 27, 1914, shortly after midday, we started 

 down the River of Doubt into the unknown. We were 

 quite uncertain whether after a week we should find 

 ourselves in the Gy-Parana, or after six weeks in the 

 Madeira, or after three months we knew not where. 

 That was why the river was rightly christened the 

 Duvida. 



We had been camped close to the river, where the 

 trail that follows the telegraph-line crosses it by a rough 

 bridge. As our laden dugouts swung into the stream, 

 Amilcar and Miller and all the others of the Gy-Parana 

 party were on the banks and the bridge to wave farewell 

 and wish us good-bye and good luck. It was the height 

 of the raiay season, and the swollen torrent was swift 

 and brown. Our camp was at about 12° 1' latitude 

 south and 60° 15' longitude west of Greenwich. Our 

 general course was to be northward toward the equator, 

 by waterway through the vast forest. 



We had seven canoes, all of them dugouts. One was 

 small, one was cranky, and two were old, waterlogged, 

 and leaky. The other three were good. The two old 

 canoes were lashed together, and the cranky one was 

 lashed to one of the others. Kermit with two paddlers 

 went in the smallest of the good canoes ; Colonel Rondon 



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