A CANOE JOURNEY 235 



and which therefore might be at the angle of a bend ; 

 landed ; cut away the branches which obstructed the 

 view, and set up the sighting-pole — incidentally en- 

 countering maribundi wasps and swarms of biting and 

 stinging ants. Lyra, from his station up-stream, with 

 his telemeter estabhshed the distance, while Colonel 

 Rondon with the compass took the direction, and made 

 the records. Then they moved on to the point Kermit 

 had left, and Kermit established a new point within 

 their sight. The first half-day's work was slow. The 

 general course of the stream was a trifle east of north, 

 but at short intervals it bent and curved literally toward 

 every point of the compass. Kermit landed nearly a 

 hundred times, and we made but nine and a third 

 kilometres. 



My canoe ran ahead of the surveying canoes. The 

 height of the water made the going easy, for most of the 

 snags and fallen trees were well beneath the surface. 

 Now and then, however, the swift water hurried us 

 toward ripples that marked ugly spikes of sunken 

 timber, or toward uprooted trees that stretched almost 

 across the stream. Then the muscles stood out on the 

 backs and arms of the paddlers as stroke on stroke they 

 urged us away from and past the obstacle. If the leaning 

 or fallen trees were the thorny, slender-stemmed boritana 

 palms, which love the wet, they were often, although 

 plunged beneath the river, in full and vigorous growth, 

 their stems curving upward, and their frond-crowned 

 tops shaken by the rushing water. It was interesting 

 work, for no civilized man, no white man, had ever gone 

 down or up this river or seen the country through which 

 we were passing. The lofty and matted forest rose like 

 a green wall on either hand. The trees were stately and 

 beautiful. The looped and twisted vines hung from them 



