234 THE RIVER OF DOUBT [chap, viii 



and Lyra with three other paddlers in the next largest ; 

 and the doctor, Cherrie, and 1, in the largest with three 

 paddlers. The remaining eight camaradas — there were 

 sixteen in all — were equally divided between our two 

 pairs of lashed canoes. Although our personal baggage 

 was cut down to the limit necessary for health and 

 efficiency, yet on such a trip as ours, where scientific 

 work has to be done and where food for twenty-two 

 men for an unknown period of time has to be carried, it 

 is impossible not to take a good deal of stuff; and the 

 seven dugouts were too heavily laden. 



The paddlers were a strapping set. They were expert 

 river-men and men of the forest, skilled veterans in 

 wilderness work. They were Uthe as panthers and 

 brawny as bears. They swam like water-dogs. They 

 were equally at home with pole and paddle, with axe 

 and machete ; and one was a good cook and others were 

 good men around camp. They looked hke pirates in the 

 pictures of Howard Pyle or Maxfield Parrish ; one or 

 two of them were pirates, and one worse than a pirate ; 

 but most of them were hard-working, willing, and 

 cheerful. They were white — or, rather, the olive of 

 southern Europe — black, copper-coloured, and of all 

 intermediate shades. In my canoe Luiz the steersman, 

 the headman, was a Matto Grosso negro ; Julio the 

 bowsman was from Bahia, and of pure Portuguese 

 blood ; and the third man, Antonio, was a Parcels 

 Indian. 



The actual surveying of the river was done by Colonel 

 Rondon and Lyra, with Kermit as their assistant. 

 Kermit went first in his httle canoe Avith the sighting- 

 rod, on which two discs, one red and one white, were 

 placed a metre apart. He selected a place which com- 

 manded as long vistas as possible up and down stream, 



